Desire
by Rachel987
Summary: Serena Watson, John's niece, comes to stay in London for a while, igniting a dark interest in her from the famous detective who desires both possession and control over her and will go out of his way to ensure that he gets what he wants from her, becoming more obsessed with the idea of conquering her with every minute spent with her.
1. One

She stormed out of the flat in tears. She had held off crying out loud until she was well out of the building but the tears had been pouring down her cheeks since she left his room. It was only once she was outside in the rain, cold, and dark and two streets over that she literally started screaming. Her hands tangled in her long blonde hair and she tugged hard at it, not quite enough to tear clumps of it out, but close. She just slumped down against a wall and sat on the pavement, not caring that it was wet. She just sat in the darkness of the street, barely lit by one dim yellow streetlamp and sobbed once the screaming subsided. She pulled the gold engagement ring off her finger without even thinking and she walked, just walked, until somehow she reached Tower Bridge, despite how far away it was from where she had been.

The thought of throwing herself off did cross her mind, although it was more an 'I could' type situation than it was an 'I want to'. She looked down at her palm and saw that the ring –that damn ring- had left a red circle in it from her clutching it too hard.

"I hate gold." she whispered, looking at it with darkened eyes. "I hate diamonds. I hate everything this damn thing represents. I hate that I have him. I hate that when I go home every night he is there instead of _him. _I hate that I need _him_. I hate that I can't have _him_." And it was with these words that she finally did what she had longed for so long now to do, and hurled the ring over the bannister and in to the dark, murky water below. She heard no splash, though it was so quiet she almost expected to, but she could make out the faint ripple as the metal band hit the surface of the water and sunk below. It seemed so final to her that she could do nothing but stand, simultaneously sobbing and laughing.

Pulling out her phone she stood still for a moment before she began to text.

I would have left him for you if you had just asked me. Hell – I would have even if you hadn't and I just thought you wanted me to. –SW

There was no reply for a few minutes, and she began to wonder if she would get one at all. Her phone chimed and buzzed in her palm and she checked it quickly, even though she knew she would not want to read whatever came as a reply.

I'm glad you didn't. I didn't want you to. I still don't want you to. Go back to him, and be happy with him. Get married, have children, live a normal life, have all the things which are the exact opposite of what we would have had if I wanted you like that. I don't deserve your love, and you deserve a hell of a lot more than mine. –SH

Fuck you.

It was all she wrote, all she needed to write in fact before she sent the message and looked down again into the water, and without a second thought tossed her phone into the deep dark river in the hopes of it joining her ring.

ONE

"John, I still don't see why this girl can't just stay on the sofa at your home, instead of coming in to mine and ruining the balance here." Sherlock said with narrowed eyes.

"Because, Sherlock, Mary and I are in the process of moving out so there are boxes everywhere, and I would rather my niece slept on a real bed than on my second hand sofa anyway." he replied coolly, hoping the discussion would be over by the time that she arrived and that Sherlock would come around to the idea of having the young girl staying in his home for a few weeks. "And before you ask, no, she cannot stay in a hotel instead, she can't afford it and Mary and I need to save for the baby. A hotel in London for a few weeks is not cheap. It's much easier for her to just stay here."

Sherlock sighed in defeat, realising that there was now no way out of this. The doorbell rang and he raised his eyebrows, telling John that if he wanted this girl to stay, he should be the one to let her in. John sighed and walked to the door, and, curious, Sherlock peered around from the kitchen to get a glimpse of her. He saw John reaching out to hug someone and nothing more for a moment.

She walked in with a smile on her full, dark pink lips, pulling a purple suitcase behind her. She was tall, only an inch or so shorter than he was, and towered over John. Her light blonde hair cascaded in soft waves down to her waist, and her dark blue eyes seemed to be deeply comprehending everything she saw. After a moment her eyes fixed on him and her smile grew wider. She walked with a confident little march over to him, leaving the case in the middle of the room.

"You must be Sherlock. I'm Serena. Thank you so much for letting me stay here, with you." He watched her lips move slowly as she spoke, forming every word perfectly. Mentally he zoomed out from her lips and took in her full form again.

Vain, but not to the point of self-obsession, he could tell from her appearance, and she way she briefly glanced in the mirror, gaze lingering but not for long. She was obsessive, just a little mind, but she kept tapping the phone in her hand with one long manicured purple nail – the same colour as her suitcase – in tens. She would tap once a second ten times, pause for ten seconds, and then begin again, but only when she was not talking, he noted. Her eyes were strained; she clearly needed glasses but thought she looked better without. He tried to picture her with them but failed. She would suit them though, she would probably suit anything. She was a non-smoker and didn't drink, probably from one of her mother's having been an alcoholic, John's sister Harry, not the other one. She obviously still preferred her though, as everything he could see pointed to her only going as Serena Watson, the luggage label on her case, the monogrammed 'SW' in gold over the purple, and the personalised phone case she had, even though he knew from John her full named was double barrelled – Serena Watson-Moore.

"You said he was good, but I didn't realise how good."

It was then that Sherlock realised that he had said everything that he had just deduced about her aloud. She did not looked annoyed, just mildly impressed and a little amused.

"I take it I was correct then?" he asked her, smirking slightly, knowing that he was.

"About everything. Although I really would expect no less than exactly accurate from the famous Mr Holmes, consulting detective." The way she said it had a hint of mocking, to his ears at least, but her smile was still sweet and sincere, and she honestly didn't mean in maliciously. "Now, I must apologise for the inconvenience my staying here must be causing you. Of course John would invite me down the week he was moving out."

"Oh no, don't apologise. It's no inconvenience whatsoever." Sherlock replied. Her face lit up even more. John gave him a look but he simply smiled at him. "Now, that's your room, perhaps you'd like to go and get unpacked and settled in?" She nodded eagerly and without another word picked up the handle of her case and took it in, shutting the door behind her.

"No inconvenience at all?" John asked.

"Of course it is, John, but the poor girl doesn't need to know that."

"Since when have you cared about offending anyone else? You did just call her vain, I remind you, so you're not off to a good start."

"Well exactly, that's quite enough offending her for the first day of meeting her. And no, of course I usually don't care, but the people I tend to offend are people I meet in passing, not women who intend to spend the next three weeks or more in my flat." He spoke too quickly to be sincere about what he was saying, and John grinned and nodded, not quite believing him but not wanting to call him out on it. He enjoyed the moments far too much when Sherlock showed himself to be human, and the clear attraction he had to his niece, as any straight man unrelated to her probably would be, was not something he wanted to interrupt. Sherlock made himself tea. John knew that Sherlock enjoyed the simple, repetitive method of such a menial task.

"What does Serena take in her tea?" Sherlock asked him suddenly. John saw there were two cups, and tried not to laugh at the blatant signal that he had either been forgotten or that Sherlock was subtly trying to tell him to leave, which he doubted, because if normal men were awkward around Serena then lord knew how Sherlock would act.

It wasn't even that she was particularly pretty, she was above average of course, but it was her demeanour rather than just an appearance that was so enthralling, and the fact that she clearly had no idea how she came across that was so appealing.

"I'll take it strong, milk and no sugar. Please."

The please dripped appealingly off her lips. For a second Sherlock allowed his mind to wander, imagining her lying back, tied to his bed, screaming that word repeatedly as he brought her almost over the edge and then refused her relief she desperately craved. It took him longer than he cared to admit to shake himself out of it. He seriously needed someone, and quickly.

People thought he was asexual. He tried very hard not to laugh whenever they did that. He was quite simply controlled in a way that only a Dominant could be. He tried very hard to keep up the appearance of being utterly uninterested though because that was better than everyone knowing how he really was. This damn girl though, who couldn't have been more than twenty years old, little more than a child, was practically making him lose it in his fucking kitchen. He'd love to have her bent over the counter so he could mercilessly fuck her from behind, hear her moaning, screaming, begging.

_Snap the hell out of it._

He quickly poured her tea and was met by a bright smile from her.

"Thank you, Mr Holmes." _I'll have you calling me that in bed, sweetheart. And in here. And in the shower, on the sofa, the floor, up against the wall and any other damn place I can think of in this flat or elsewhere. And when I get bored of that we'll try 'Sir', and 'Master' and see how those sound coming from those pretty lips._

He noted the way her eyes fixed on him, the way they grew slightly larger and her lips parted when she was concentrating.

"That's quite all right, Serena." She smiled even brighter when he said her name. _Maybe she likes the sounds of hers coming from me as much as I like mine coming from her. Perhaps she could be easily persuaded to go to bed with me._

"Sherlock." It was John, waking him from the daydream he had fallen in to. "I have to go home now."

_And leave me alone with the blonde goddess in my flat? I'm not sure if I'm elated or horrified about this. _Serena did not looked bothered that he was leaving, not worried, somehow already comfortable around him, but also not clearly relieved that he was leaving. Obviously she did not have the intention of jumping him as soon as John left, not that he would want her to. Her taking charge or even giving any indication of wanting to do so before he expressly allowed her to would seriously diminish his want for her. Perhaps that would be for the best though. She was after all probably off limits, and what was to say she would want him anyway?

"Of course. Well, I'm sure I'll see you soon." John nodded and without a goodbye to either of them he left.

_Oh god._

Serena was sat, biting her lip, playing with a long strand of her beautiful long hair. She yawned softly and looked up at him with eyes which were suddenly apologetic and tired.

"I think I need to go to bed now. It's been a long day. Thank you again for having me to stay with you, Mr Holmes. Goodnight." Why had she adopted that manner of addressing him, he wondered. She had referred to him as Sherlock at first, why not subsequently? He mumbled goodnight to her as she pushed herself off the counter she had been leaning on and brushed past him as she made her way to John's old room, now his guest room. He watched her walk in, for the first time catching a glimpse of that perfect, round arse. He shifted uncomfortably, arousal now evident as he knew he was alone and could relinquish some of his control.

He quickly went in to the bathroom and turned on the shower, hastily undressing and getting in to it. He had every intention of just standing until the erection died down but almost as though it was a reflex his hand travelled downwards and he began stroking himself.

_Imagine her hands on you like this. Imagine fucking that perfect mouth as she looks up at you with those blue eyes. Just imagine what fucking her would be like, tied up, handcuffed, or hanging from the hook in the ceiling, making her scream and beg to be allowed her release, writhing under me and moaning as I finally allow her._

His orgasm ripped through the fantasy, and he leant against the shower wall groaning softly, God forbid she heard him.

Sherlock did not like to get up early in the mornings, but with the hopes that the woman staying in his flat did not either and the fact that he hadn't heard any movement coming from outside his room, he dragged himself out of bed and wandered into the kitchen, hoping to revive himself with some tea.

But of course she was up already, looking perfect, hair only slightly out of place and bright eyes, book in one hand, mug in the other. He looked closely to see what she was reading, an incredibly well-thumbed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird which she was already close to the end of. On the counter sat a second book, Gone With the Wind, which she clearly intended on beginning once she was done with this one. She looked up immediately when she heard footsteps and jumped down from the counter, obviously not sure if it was okay for her to be sitting up there or not. It was only then that he noticed her attire, a purple shirt, his shirt, and nothing else.

_Please, don't let her be wearing anything under that._

"Good morning." she sounded guilty. "I… uh… I forgot to pack anything to sleep in and by the time I was unpacked it was late and I didn't want to disturb you and ask if I could borrow something, so I did anyway. I'm sorry. I'll go out and buy something today."

"Please, don't bother." he said, voice surprisingly collected and calm. "That suits you just fine, far better than it does me. Now, please, if you want to make it up to me, I'd like tea. I take mine the same way you take yours." She nodded and put the kettle on.

"Yes, Mr Holmes."

_I like that she's obedient already._

She handed him his tea in the cup he had been drinking from the previous evening. _Is she trying to second guess which cup I want? _That seemed rather pointless to him. He smiled at her and swiftly retreated to the living room, and watched her return to perching on the counter.

* * *

Thanks to all for reading! Reviews are always very welcome! Chapters tend to be updated every few hours as and when I write them.


	2. Two

TWO

"John says he's busy with moving all day, so I'm afraid you'll be stuck with me in your flat until dinner this evening." Serena said apologetically as she put her phone down. She knew perfectly well that Sherlock, who was standing not four feet away from her, had heard the conversation, but in case he had missed the pivotal 'spend the day with Sherlock' line from John she thought she better clarify that. She felt bad for essentially forcing him to put up with her for even longer than necessary.

"Well, I happen to be going out, on a case. You could come with me if that peaks your interest. It's not the typical tourist activity, I know, but I enjoy having people there."

"That actually sounds more appealing than a day wandering around London like I didn't live here for fourteen years." she replied, smiling brightly. She went to get dressed without another word; she hadn't wanted to stay wandering around his flat half naked for the entire morning but she hadn't found the time to change yet. Despite what John had said about his awkwardness he seemed quite a good conversationalist. She'd spoken to him mostly about cases that she'd read about on her uncles blog.

When she came back out she was wearing a grey dress and a long white open cardigan over the top of it.

"Not very crime scene appropriate, I know." she said when he raised his eyebrows at the attire. "But I really don't have much that would be." He nodded understandingly as she sat on a chair and put her shoes on, flat purple pumps.

"Let's go." He said, as soon as she was done. It definitely did not seem to be phrased as a question to her ears, and she immediately stood up.

_What the hell is wrong with me? I've never been this compliant before._ It was the air of authority that he had that she just felt the need to obey any command he gave her. It seemed impossible that she might ever argue with anything he said. She walked out through the door he was holding open for her and down the stairs. She'd seen him wearing the long coat that he had on in the papers before, she guessed it was kind of his trademark. That and the stupid hat of course, which she was silently relieved he wasn't wearing, not that she would have dared to complain if he was. It wasn't like she thought he would get angry at her, he just had this look of disappointment, like this morning when she had been on the counter in his shirt. Her cheeks flushed at the memory. John had told her he tended to sleep all morning, so she thought she had been safe going out there half naked to read and drink tea. As ever, John had been wrong, and she wondered again why she ever bothered to listen to her uncle in the first place.

There was a cab waiting for them outside, and before she could even go to open the door herself, Sherlock had opened it for her. She thanked him quietly and got in to the car, admittedly slightly nervous about the idea of seeing a crime scene. _Relax, they probably won't even let you in, _she told herself internally. _You're just going with him because you have nothing better to do, and a weird inability to refuse anything he asks you for._

"What do you do, Serena?" he asked her suddenly, almost as soon as the taxi began to move. She looked a little taken aback but composed herself quickly.

"I'm a photographer, well, not professionally, just in my spare time. And I paint. I actually had some pictures on display in this gallery that a friend of mine owns and it went really well. I actually made some money off of them. I'm kind of taking a gap year while I figure out what I want to do, but I think it'll be something arty rather than academic." He chuckled lightly and she raised one eyebrow at him. "Is that funny?"

"No, it isn't." he assured her. "I just took you for someone who would rather be in front of the camera than behind it." She blushed. _Serena, get it the hell together. Much as you might want him to, he is not calling you attractive. It's just another part of him calling you 'vain'._

"I think I'm a little too awkward to model. I can barely walk ten paces without tripping over my own feet, let alone down a catwalk or whatever. Besides, that never really appealed to me. I'd much rather be the one taking the pictures." As she always did when she felt a little awkward she started twisting a long, blonde strand of hair around her index finger. He said nothing else to her for the rest of the journey, but the silence did not seem as uncomfortable as it might have been, but it seemed very final and she was reluctant to break it, lest he give her that look of disappointment again.

It was not long before the taxi pulled up at their destination and the two of them got out. It was a large block of flats, not particularly pleasant looking. There was a team of policemen gathered outside and Sherlock walked up to them quickly and without hesitation, and she followed him a little slower. One of them turned and started talking to him.

"Serena, finally." he said once she arrived, only fifteen seconds after he did. "This is DI Lestrade; he works most of the cases that I solve."

"Most of the cases that you assist in solving." the other man corrected him, although clearly he did not believe this anymore than Sherlock did. "It's nice to meet you Serena; I think John mentioned you were coming down to see him last week. He," the man said, gesturing to Sherlock. "was not happy about giving you a room, but he seems to have come around now if he's bringing you to murder scenes." She laughed softly.

"How lucky I am, then." she said, smiling very genuinely at Sherlock, whose mild look of annoyance faded away quickly as he realised that she wasn't unhappy in the slightest about him not having wanted her around in the first place. "It's nice to meet you too…"

"Greg." he said with a smile.

"I'm sure it was Graham last time." Sherlock said frowning, and Serena laughed softly and Greg shook his head.

"It really has always been Greg." He turned to Serena. "I must have told him my name a thousand times and he still has trouble remembering it. I'm surprised he didn't introduce you as Sabrina or something else bearing a slight resemblance to your real name." She grinned and shook her head.

"No, he hasn't seemed to have much trouble with mine."

"Well good. I'm afraid though you might have come here for nothing, Serena, it's a closed crime scene, the only one we're really inclined to let in is Sherlock." She nodded understandingly, and honestly a little relieved about this. She was not sure she was really up to the task of analysing a dead body. She was never much good at detaching herself from a situation and looking at it objectively, she became emotionally involved far too easily. Sherlock however did not seem pleased about this.

"Lestrade, she's my stand-in John, for today at least. I'd like her in there with me."

"Not this time. She's never seen this kind of thing before and trust me when I say even you are going to have a problem looking at this. It's not a pretty sight." Sherlock sighed, but agreed reluctantly and looked at her apologetically. She waved it off, smiling.

"I really don't mind, Sherlock." He looked at her with amused confusion, and she realised that since first meeting him she had referred to him only as 'Mr Holmes'. It sounded too odd for her in public though. She wasn't sure why she did it, at first it had just been teasing, not cruelly so, just amusing to her, but now, now it was just accepted that this was what she would call him, and saying his first name seemed unacceptable to her.

"Well then, I won't be too long." With this he beckoned for Greg to go with him in to the building and she watched him go. He did not turn around.

_Right. Well, now I'm stuck here on my own, bored because it's impossible to say no to that man with a pack of male police officers who are currently looking at me the way a dog looks at a steak. Fan-fucking-tastic._

As she had expected, the men took it in turn to come up to her, trying on various pick-up lines with no varying success. She swore that if one more of them came up to her she was seriously going to kick them in the balls. It was then that a woman, thank God, exited the building and walked over to her.

"Sherlock thought you might be bored, and I was done in there anyway. He sent me out to keep you company and to keep the wolves away. She gestured to the men who looked annoyed that she had come out to protect their new toy.

"Well thank you. I was about to do something very drastic to the next one who presumed to use some cheesy pick-up line on me. I'm not sure how they would work on any woman."

"I would have thought far less of you if they had. As it stands, you seem alright to me, certainly not awful enough to be subjected to the vultures. They're mostly married but their wives are pretty much all having affairs, so they're sexually frustrated." Serena laughed softly. "And besides, you came here with Sherlock. They don't like him much, and they probably think you're together, so the idea of coming between you is quite appealing." Serena looked a little shocked and opened her mouth to speak. "No, don't worry, I don't think you are. We all know he doesn't have much interest in women."

"Is he gay?" Serena asked her, eager to learn more about the man she was staying with.

"No, he's not as far as we know. He just doesn't take much interest in anyone really." _Well, at least he's not completely off limits then._

_Hold on, what was that? No. Hell no. You cannot like that man, not that way. Can you imagine what John would say? He hardly seems like boyfriend material anyway, I mean, think about it, he's shown no interest in you in that way. I'm just thinking of excuses now, I know, but hell, I can't like him that way. Not now, not ever. There couldn't be a worse thing for you to do. You have to stay in this man's house for the next few weeks. There is no need to make it any more awkward than it already is._

"Really? I suppose that's not really surprising." she said with a shrug, trying to hide the fact that this disappointed her a little. "Anything else I should know about him to make the next few weeks a little more bearable?"

"Nothing really. I'm guessing he's already made the rude observations about you and that's about it. John says that living with him is hard. He'll talk to you while you're out and phase out of conversations if his mind wanders." She nodded; she had noticed him doing this a lot the night before. She didn't really mind this particular habit though. "I'm Sally, Sally Donovan, by the way."

"Serena Watson." As usual, she deliberately left off the last part of her surname.

The two of them talked quite pleasantly, and apart from Sally's clear dislike of Sherlock she actually seemed like a genuinely nice person. It must have been about half an hour before Sherlock and Greg finally exited the building and walked straight over to the two women.

"Solved it?" Sally asked him, seemingly uncaringly. Sherlock nodded smugly, and Greg simply looked envious, as though he longed to have the same deductive powers as the other man.

"There was a scrap of paper in the air vent." Sherlock said simply. To Serena of course this made very little sense, but Sally nodded understandingly, so clearly this meant something to her." Serena could tell she was trying not to look overly impressed, but that she clearly was. She didn't understand why she was so reluctant to admit that Sherlock had done something right and well. Did she honestly hate him that much? Or did she simply not like the idea of anyone being more intelligent than her? Serena thought that she was quite clever, or she thought herself to be at least, and clearly she was competitive in this way. Maybe the idea of knowing someone who she could never best in a battle of wits was so abhorrent to her that she was reluctant to acknowledge that anything he did was good. "Shall we go, Serena?" She nodded and watched as another taxi pulled up, obviously for them. He opened the door for her again and she got in to it, saying nothing.

"You called me Sherlock." he said, once again only speaking once they were finally in motion.

"Should I not have done?" she asked with a small frown, confused as to why he was only now bringing this up.

"No, it's quite alright. In fact, possibly more acceptable around other people." She sighed, a little relieved that he was not annoyed at her for doing the wrong thing. "But in private you may continue to call me Mr Holmes." She smiled brightly. She wasn't sure why she preferred this, but it felt more natural than calling him Sherlock to her.

"Of course, Mr Holmes."

The four words were said with a wicked sparkle in her eyes and a playful tone. _Stop flirting with him. It's useless anyway. He's not interested in anyone, remember?_

Scolding herself mentally the whole way back she did not speak to him again for the rest of the journey, and he made no attempt to speak to her either. She stared out of the window at London, bleak on the cold October day and bit her lip softly as she always did when she was deep in thought about something. She disliked that thoughts of this one man were plaguing her mind so much. She had never been this enthralled by one person before, and what was worse was that it must be so obvious that she fancied him.

_Just try to act normal, Serena._

Once they were back inside Baker Street she mumbled some excuse and went back into her room. She lay on the bed reading until late when she realised that she had to go to dinner with John and Mary. She quickly got up and went into the bathroom to shower before she got changed into something more suitable for a fancy restaurant, which she was looking forward to trying. She did not know if Sherlock would come, but hoped that he would.

After the other pair had left in the taxi, Sargent Donovan and Lestrade had taken a seat on a nearby bench, and found their discussion falling to them.

"He talked about her all the time we were inside. It got better after you left, he was less worried that one of them was going to take her behind the bins and have his way with her, but he still spoke about her. I've never seen him so…" Lestrade trailed off his sentence, unable to finish it. He knew Sherlock too well, or he thought he did at least, to consider than there might be an attraction there, but he saw the way Sherlock was enthralled by her, the way that some people might become obsessed with a possession they do not have and wish to acquire. He'd honestly never seen Sherlock look that way at somebody before today.

"He's obviously interested in her." Donovan said with a shrug. "But I'm not sure she feels the same. She was asking me if he's gay. I was half tempted to say yes."

"Maybe she was only asking you because she wants to know if she's in with a chance with him." he suggested, ignoring her final comment. At this, Sally laughed a little cruelly and shook her head.

"Did you see that girl? She's way too pretty for the likes of him." Greg shrugged.

"Maybe. Let's go and get a drink and talk about something else."


	3. Three

THREE

Dinner, Sherlock thought to himself, would be a long, arduous event during which he would do his level best to continue to be composed around the young girl, whose simple image filled his head so often now that he could barely think of anything else. It had taken over half an hour to solve the case she so willingly accompanied him to earlier where it should have only taken half a minute. He had rung John as soon as they arrived home and Serena hastily retreated to her bedroom to say that he would not go, but somehow he had managed to be persuaded that it was a good idea. At least he would not be alone with her. The taxi both ways had been almost unbearable, the urge just to reach over and touch her face, kiss her, anything which would involve closing at least a little of the distance between them, was overwhelming.

He had heard no noise from her room and wondered if she had fallen asleep. Forgetting any courtesy – it was after all his flat – he went in without knocking.

She was stood, wrapped only in a towel, turning to him quickly with widened eyes.

"I thought you might be asleep, I just came in to wake you, but I see you're already up." She nodded. She didn't seem embarrassed in the least, although she had been wearing not much more that morning in the kitchen. He liked her confidence. Somehow it made her all the more attractive to him.

"No, I was just reading and then I decided it was about time I should get ready for dinner. Are you coming with us?" She looked hopeful at the thought, and he nodded quickly. She smiled brightly. "Good. Would you help me choose what to wear? I mean, you've been there before. I'm not sure what's appropriate for this place." He nodded and walked to her open wardrobe, looking carefully through the dresses in there. "And, as I'm sure you can tell from earlier, I pay very little attention to what I wear." _If she was mine I could control what she wore, nothing like that unflattering grey 'dress' she insisted on wearing earlier, something elegant, expensive, becoming for someone of her beauty. And then I could rip it off before I fucked her and just buy her a new one the next day which was even more beautiful. _His want for this woman was growing by the hour. Again trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts, he finally decided upon a midnight blue dress, low cut but the hem of which was longer than her knees, and would sway, he thought from the fabric, as she walked. She smiled gratefully and took the dress from him, laying it on the bed. He continued to stare at the wardrobe and brought up a pair of simple black pumps for her to wear on her feet. She had said she was clumsy earlier, and he would not test that by putting her in heels, not that she owned any anyway. Besides, he would not want her to be any taller than she already was.

"Did you bring jewellery with you?" he asked her. He realised that she only asked him to choose her dress, but he didn't care. He wanted this mark of control over her at least, and she was not complaining. In fact, she looked grateful. Still clutching her towel to herself, she waked over and picked up a small box with one hand, seemingly struggling to keep the towel up and hold it.

_Just let it fall. Let me see you._

She handed him the box and readjusted the towel and took the dress in to the bathroom to change away from him. He found himself scowling at the closed door she had walked through before he diverted his attention and he looked through the box.

Serena had very little of value, but by pure chance she did own a few pieces with what looked at least to be real sapphires. There was one in a teardrop shape on the end of a short silver chain that caught his attention, and he laid it and a pair of matching earrings on her bed next to the shoes he had chosen for her. He departed her room and went to change. It was not a subconscious decision that, with the suit he chose, he wore a tie of the exact same shade of blue as her dress.

John and Mary arrived not long later. The two of them were dressed as well as Sherlock and Serena were, and Mary had gone to great pains to find a dress which made her, in the current, fairly heavily pregnant state she was in, look good, and she had actually succeeded. He invited them in and told them she was still getting ready. The three of them sat down in the living room and waited.

She came out around five minutes later, and all conversation stopped when she did.

The dress looked as perfect on her slim form as he had imagined it would. The jewellery complimented the dress perfectly, and he had to tear his eyes from the necklace which was bouncing pleasingly in her cleavage, and she had expertly applied a light coating of makeup to her perfect, porcelain face.

"Serena you look so wonderful!" Mary gushed, getting up and rushing to her as quickly as a woman in her condition could do. Mary kissed her once on each cheek, but it was Sherlock's eyes that she met as she mouthed a silent thank you.

"I am so sorry I couldn't come to your wedding, Mary, but I had exams. I really wanted to, and so did Mum, but it was hard to get away. We sent a telegram thing." Mary sighed and her eyes locked on Sherlock as she explained that the best man had decided they were unimportant and refused to read most of them. Serena pressed her lips together, visibly trying to keep from laughing. "Oh well, I'm sure you all did just fine without us. Plus, Carlie was being difficult that week so Mum couldn't come down on her own."

"Carlie is…?" Sherlock prompted.

"Harry's ex-wife." John said coolly. Clearly there was no affection there for her, and Serena had stiffened. "She's Serena's other adoptive mother."

"Let's not ruin a nice evening by talking about her though." Serena said her tone very final. Her obvious hate for this woman was evident. John nodded, not wanting to make her any more unhappy. Sherlock looked at her, for once sympathetically. For all his troubles growing up he was thankful at least, not that he would ever admit it, that he had parents who loved him and who he loved in return.

"Yes, let's leave." Mary said quickly, taking her arm and leading her downstairs.

"Sherlock," John said as the two made their way slowly downstairs. "You don't… I mean, I thought last night you might… Have a thing for Serena."

"You think I fancy your niece?" He feigned being genuinely affronted by the accusation even though it was pretty much dead on, not that John had any idea of exactly how Sherlock wanted her. He supposed that John thought he would like to date his niece, marry her, have half goddess, half freak children with her, and if John insisted on knowing that he felt something for her he would rather he thought it was that than the truth.

"When you put it like that it sounds ridiculous, obviously. But I mean, if you did… I want you to know I wouldn't have a problem with it. With your liking her. Because she has a terrible taste in men generally and honestly, even though you are at least ten years too old for her, she could do a lot worse than you."

_Which is not something you would be saying if you knew why I really wanted her._

Sherlock simply nodded, and entered the car that John owned. Mary and Serena had taken over the backseat, laughing and talking animatedly about the baby and what the pair planned on calling it. Mary was sure it would be a girl, and Serena cooed at the names she liked as possible choices for her cousin and suggested a few of her own.

"You know, we could call her Serena…" Mary mused, smiling. Sherlock turned to Serena who was blushing, and he wondered if she for some reason deemed herself unworthy of having their child be her namesake.

"Maybe as a middle name." she said softly, trying to deter them, playing with her hair again.

"No, I agree with Mary, I think it would be an excellent name." John said, without turning around to face them. "A second Serena Watson. Tell her Sherlock; tell her what a good idea it is for the baby to be called after her."

"I still think, no matter the gender, it should be called Sherlock."

"I agree." Serena said, grinning. "Sherlock is an excellent name for a little girl." She looked relieved that the idea of calling the child after her had faded.

They parked the car a little while later, and John got out to open the car door for Mary, and he did the same for Serena, even though this might have seemed a little strange. John and Mary walked ahead of them, and Sherlock held his arm out for her. It seemed the right thing to do, common courtesy and all. She smiled brightly at him, and took his arm without hesitation, biting her lip softly as she walked with him.

_You need to stop doing that._

"Stop doing what?" she asked softly, and once again he realised he had spoken aloud. He would spend the rest of the evening terrified of voicing more of his thoughts. He looked at her, and saw those big, seemingly innocent blue eyes fixed on him.

"That look, and the lip biting." he replied. "It's distracting."

"Distracting from what exactly?" she asked, sounding half perplexed, and half amused. There was something else in her eyes too, something akin to relief, but he couldn't think why that would be present in her gaze.

"Everything."

"I don't see how that could possibly distract you from everything." she said, quiet but a little defensive. He wondered if she actually might feel bad about supposedly distracting him.

"It's not just the lip biting, Serena. I know you don't understand how you could possibly distract me, but you do, whether you realise it or not." She looked away from him and kept her eyes fixed on her feet as they walked. She ran a hand back through her hair before she picked up the jewel of her necklace and started twisting it around. Her every movement intrigued him, and he knew it shouldn't, but it was so easy to be captivated by her. He had never pined this hard for a woman. Never been this transfixed on one person. The longest he had kept a submissive for was just over two months, and he'd been seeing others at the same time. That was a while ago now. Perhaps it would help if he could just be more assertive with her, but for the first time he was actually finding that difficult. Even telling her how distracting the lip biting was had felt like a struggle, as though he was being too forward.

"I'm sorry. It's honestly not intentional. If I could stop it, whatever it may be, I would, because it's clearly bothering you." Still she did not look up at him and without thinking he curled a finger under her chin, gently forcing her to look at him. He could see her struggling not to bite her lip as she stared in to his eyes.

"Yes it is, but I wouldn't have you stop."

"You know I could say the same for you, right?" she snapped at him suddenly, and his hand dropped away quickly. "I've been borderline useless all day because I'm too worried I'll do something wrong around you for no reason. I don't appreciate the commanding me around." _Oh, I'll make you appreciate it sweetheart. _She looked almost surprised that she had spoken, as though she had meant to just think it rather than say it, but she made no indication that she was going to apologise. He didn't like that she had suddenly grown a backbone. He much preferred her being nervous and on edge around him, desperate to please him. It was probably the closest to her submission that he would get after all, and he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

"You don't have to do what I ask you." he said, smirking slightly. "You can always refuse." She shook her head, light blonde waves bouncing around her form.

"But I can't – that's the problem. I haven't worked out how to say no to you yet, and I don't know how I ever will. If anyone else acted the way you do around me then I would have yelled at them a lot sooner than this but I'm so worried about displeasing you that I haven't yet and it's driving me crazy!"

She very suddenly, after this little outburst, let go of his arm and marched hurridly forward, although he saw this as being rather futile as they were only about twenty paces from the restaurant.

It was clear in her own, unruly way that she was already submitting to him. She just didn't realise it, simply thinking of him as controlling. And, she had said herself that she would have called someone else out on it far sooner, which to him indicated that she might be persuaded eventually, perhaps that she actually didn't mind – dare he even think that she enjoyed it – him telling her what to do. He had been careful just to get her to do little things, wearing what he told her to that evening, making him tea, and then there were other things that he didn't ask for that she did, like apologising that morning for wearing his shirt without permission. With enough encouragement, and provided of course that she was willing to, she could be an excellent submissive. The little public outburst was simply her fighting it the only way she could because she was scared that she liked being told what to do, and she wasn't supposed to enjoy it, or so he hoped at least. Perhaps he would leave it over dinner, maybe even for the rest of the evening and allow her to calm down before he attempted to coax her into doing any more for him. He had a few weeks after all to work on her. She could be his little project while she stayed with him.

By the time he caught up she was already sat at the table with John and Mary. He would of course have to be sat next to her, just after resolving not to do any more during dinner.

While John and Mary chatted about what they would have she was quiet, although he noticed her look up from the menu a couple of times and glance at him. Eventually, she stopped looking down and discreetly placed her hand over his which was resting on the edge of his chair. He looked up from his menu at her and she smiled, clearly having just wanted his attention.

"Sorry." she mouthed softly, taking her hand off his. "I didn't mean to yell at you."

_Oh love, if you were mine I'd have taken you home, punished you _severely, _and after that_ _you'd be on your knees in front of me showing me just how sorry you are. For now though, that silly little apology will have to do._

"I know. It's quite alright." It definitely wasn't. He wanted nothing more than her naked, bend over his knee so he could spank her and ensure that she never had such a childish, disobedient outburst in public again, but for now that would have to be another fantasy filed away for a time when she was willing to try it out, and he hoped beyond reason that she would be.

It had crossed his mind that afternoon that perhaps he should simply find someone else, there were several submissive's he knew that he had not tried yet, and a few others who would be happy to enjoy his company again, but he couldn't. Serena was a challenge, and he liked that, he liked that with her there was no guarantee that anything at all would happen. His sexual conquests had always been easy, and for the first time he found himself having to be subtle and snide in winning her over. And he would, unless it killed him. He would win her over.

He just had to be clever about it.


	4. Four

FOUR

After her little screaming fit, Serena found herself feeling much better. There was still of course a part of her that hated herself for standing up to him – he did not come across as the kind of person who liked people standing up to him – but she felt good about it and herself. She was not a silly little girl who needed someone to boss her around. Although, and she was hesitant to admit this, she did enjoy it. Perhaps enjoy was too frivolous a word, but she couldn't think of another. It just felt natural to her to do as he said, and really the only reason she had kicked up a fuss was because she knew she needed to, because as right as it felt she could not go on for the next few weeks simply doing whatever he said. For one thing, if John asked her why she was doing it –because he would notice- then she really would have no way of explaining what she was doing or her reasons for doing it.

_I swear I have never been this confused by or had to analyse my own actions so much for one person in my life._

She felt really good about yelling at him for the forty eight seconds it took her to march in to the restaurant and sit down. As soon as she saw him she felt bad, even though he was smirking, and she knew it was because he would be disappointed in her.

_Fucking hell Serena, stop caring so much!_

And hell, when she had touched his hand to catch his attention she swore, like seriously swore, that she felt something.

_And if you feel all that just touching his hand imagine how good it would feel to just fuck that guy. He'd be good in bed I bet, well, if he was interested, which according to Sally he never would be._

She was still very disappointed about that, and still silently holding out hope that she was wrong.

"So Serena, have you considered University anymore?" John asked her suddenly, as soon as he was done talking to Mary. The three of them were all looking at her now, and she looked down at the table and shook her head. "She was accepted into Cambridge and Oxford and turned both of them down. She told her mother that academia didn't suit her and that she wanted to take a year off to work on her art." John explained to both Sherlock and Mary, clearly neither of whom had been told the story before. There was an undertone of disappointment when he spoke which he was desperately trying to conceal. She swallowed the dry lump that had formed in her throat and bit down hard on her lip. She felt Sherlock looking at her with eyes full of concern and he took her hand gently. As soon as she felt blood drawn on her lip she stood, dropped his hand and mumbled some excuse and went to the bathroom.

She dabbed at her lip silently, not looking at herself in the large mirror over the bathroom sinks, willing herself not to cry. She hated any reminder of what she had given up – she was so secure about her decision normally until it came to her family being disappointed in her. John used to be so kind, never the one to tell her she had done wrong, but when it came to her giving up University he clearly felt the same as he mothers did.

It wasn't long before she went back out to the table and sat back in her seat. Her lip had stopped bleeding and she had reapplied her makeup over it in a vague attempt to ensure that she still looked her best. She sat with a bright smile, and noticed that the menus were gone and sighed. She'd missed ordering.

"I ordered for you. Fetuccine Alfredo. I was under the impression that was what you were looking at on the menu, but if it was not then I can call the waitress over for you and you can amend it." She shook her head.

"No, that's what I wanted. Thank you."

She had an overwhelming gratefulness to him as he began to converse with her about her photography and art. _I'd love to paint him. To try and capture even some of his demeanour would be difficult, but it might be fun to try. He'd probably never let me though, not now at least. Maybe I could ask in a week or so?_ She was much more animated when she talked about her painting than she was when she talked about anything else, although he would have found her to speak in a similar way if he asked her about books she enjoyed. He listed closely to her like he was actually interested in what she was talking about. He couldn't have been because from what she could gather he had little to no knowledge of any art other than the classic renaissance type that everyone knew about, although he did seem to have a lot more to say about that than most people.

As she did everywhere, she had brought her camera to dinner, and he instructed her to take pictures, and she did. They were back to him ordering her around then. She didn't mention it or complain this time. _I'm just going to have to get used to it. I feel too bad calling him out on it and it could be a thousand times worse. He said himself I could always say no._

She took pictures of John and Mary, of a man on one knee proposing to his boyfriend, the flowers in vases around the room, the candles on the table. He asked to borrow it, and figuring Sherlock was unlikely to break it, she handed it to him and paid no attention to what he was taking pictures of, although she heard the tell-tale click so she knew he was photographing something. She simply started speaking to her uncle again, laughing with him and Mary as they talked about how to decorate their nursery.

By the time dinner arrived she had already had a glass and a half of wine, and by the time she was done she had added another two to that total. She wasn't drunk but she was a little tipsy, giggly. Sherlock was watching her closely, but for the first time, she didn't notice or really care what he was doing. She was having a good time and she refused to let it be spoilt by noticing the disapproving looks she was getting from the man seated next to her. She actually ordered a martini, followed by two shots, and then a double whiskey.

Laughing, now making her way through another glass of wine, she picked up her camera again and turned it towards him; taking pictures of his profile side on before he noticed her and told her gently to give him the camera.

"You don't like me taking your picture? You're pretty though, you look fine." she said, grinning. He shook his head, sighing softly. John and Mary were trying not to laugh.

"Serena, you are going to drop that. I would bet any item I own that it was not cheap and that it is probably the most expensive thing you own. Give it to me now, and you can have it back later when you are less likely to damage it, because I will not have you whining for the rest of the evening when you smash it." he told her firmly. John and Mary were not listening, which she thought was good, because she was somewhat embarrassed at being told what to do by him, and the fact that she would do it. Blushing and not meeting his eyes she gave him the camera, and he set it on the table on the other side of him where she could not reach it.

After that she finished her wine pretty quickly.

"I want to go to a bar!" she announced as the group of them left the restaurant.

"I'm not sure your bloodstream can take much more alcohol, sweetheart." Sherlock said to her, and she pouted. She was clinging on to his arm not because she wanted to be close to him but because there was no other conceivable way that she could have walked to the car from the restaurant. He guided her along gently, careful not to pull her too quickly in case she might topple over and her grip not be tight enough to keep her up. "The amount you drunk was careless, Serena."

"So what? I'm nineteen years old; I'm allowed to be careless." she said, laughing, not snapping at him again as she might have done if she were sober.

He gritted his teeth, and she rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, smiling gleefully when she saw that he had nothing to say to that. _Hell, maybe I shouldn't have told him how old I am, although surely John mentioned it. That must be even more off putting than the drunkenness and the fact he clearly finds me utterly unappealing. Or at least, he would never think of me like that. Would he? Of course not. But perhaps he could be persuaded too. I mean, the dress he picked for me is quite revealing, maybe he actually already does… No. You're drunk Serena. Stop letting your mind wander._

He ushered her quickly in to the car. Mary had sat in the front seat and he sat beside her this time.

"I don't feel well…" she murmured, laying down across the seats, apparently forgetting he was there and deciding that his lap made a good enough head rest that she would not sit up again unless he told her to. He stiffened for a moment, but upon watching her close her eyes and fall into a state of half sleep he relaxed a little, one hand linked with hers, the other stroking through her long blonde hair.

"Sleep." he told her softly. She thought she felt him kiss the top of her head, but in her half aware state she was not entirely sure. Why would he? And surely, if he was going to, it would not be something he would do in public, in front of her uncle.

It was only when the car pulled to a stop outside of his home that she was fully aware of what was happening, feeling strong arms pick her up and carry her out in to the rain. She nestled her head in to his neck, eyelids beginning to feel heavy again and he held her close and carried her inside, and upstairs. He lay her down on her bed.

"Please, help me out of the dress. I forget how it works." she mumbled helplessly. He smiled, and without any thought in his mind other than that he wanted to look after her, he took down the discreet zip on the side of her dress and pulled it off her. He took her shoes off, and lay them down on the floor. He hung the dress back up in her wardrobe, running the smooth, silky fabric between his fingers before he shut it away.

When he looked back at her he seemed to find it hard to take his eyes from her form, sprawled out over the sheets, barely wearing a thing. Her underwear matched, beautiful black lace contrasting perfectly with her ivory skin. He said something softly.

"What?" she asked, looking up at him, the blue of her eyes seemingly more dull now than it had been before. He chuckled.

"I said, turn over, sweetheart." She barely understood but even now, in her drunken stupor, she had clear trouble refusing his requests. She rolled onto her stomach, hazily laying her head on the pillow. She couldn't see him anymore but she could feel his presence behind her. He found the clasp of her bra and slowly undid it, and she realised that he had asked her to turn to protect her modesty, and she was sorry that he had. Was he really that repulsed by the idea of seeing her? He worked the straps down off her arms and worked it out from under her and hooked it on the chair in the corner of the room, picking up the shirt she had worn the night before from the same chair. He picked one arm up and slid it in to one sleeve and then did the same with her other arm. "Hold it together so I can do it up for you." he said, and she tugged on the material covering herself and then turned over to face him again. His hands did not fumble at all as he buttoned it up slowly.

"Do you really want to see me so little that you needed me to turn over, to hold that shirt together? Am I that repulsive to you, Mr Holmes?" It was a wonder, even to Serena that in her current state she was able to construct that many words in a row without tripping over them, but she managed.

"No love, you aren't. It's not because I didn't want to see you, love, it's because I do."

She wanted to speak, to say something, anything else, but the words would not form in her mouth. He smiled at her and kissed her softly on the cheek before he stood up and without another word left her and her thoughts alone in her room.

Serena was asleep within minutes of his leaving.

Waking through the night was not something she did often, but around half past two in the morning, Serena woke, slightly dazed, but feeling slightly steadier on her feet. What had passed between her and Sherlock might have seemed like a dream if she had not been wearing the shirt which he had so carefully dressed her in, and the four beautiful words that he had uttered and he had left echoing around the room and around her head. She smiled softly to herself as she got up from her bed and went through to the kitchen, knowing that if she drunk enough water she would not have such a headache tomorrow.

The flat was cold and dark as she stepped out of her room. She went to turn on a light but decided against it as her eyes adjusted; worried that she might wake Sherlock and not wanting to inconvenience him any more than she already had by getting so drunk that evening.

Half hoping to find him up, she was disappointed when the living room was empty as she stood in the dark pouring herself a large glass of water. Her eyes darted around, looking for any sign of what he might have done after he put her to bed. There was nothing, except a camera, her camera, on the table. Feeling too awake now to go to bed, she simply sat in the chair she had now come to learn was his, she set her water down and picked up the camera, deciding to flip through the dozens of pictures she had taken that night.

She took one more sip of water before she got started; readying herself for what she was sure would be half an hour of self-criticism and her vowing never to take another picture.

All pictures she had taken before that evening were loaded on to her laptop so when she started from the beginning the first thing she saw was pictures from that evening.

Honestly, she had to admit to herself that they were pretty good. Obviously they were not up to the standard that she dreamed they one day would be, but the lighting in the restaurant had been perfect and made everything look beautiful. The pictures she had taken looked more professional than anything she had ever taken before, and she was grateful to Sherlock for having coaxed her into taking them.

The ones of the candles were her favourites, the way that the flames were beautiful and orange against the black tablecloths, but she also liked zooming in on the petals of the flowers she had captured, and wondered if she might paint a few of them or try them out in charcoal on her sketch pad and see if they worked as well in black and white. There was a series of about twelve pictures of a couple whose engagement she had managed to capture purely by chance and she smiled as she looked at how happy the two men embracing were.

_Is it odd that I don't want something like that? Should I desire a proposal in a busy restaurant even though I'm too young to get married? _She remembered the way her sister used to plan her wedding and how that even as a child that kind of thing had never really appealed to her.

She found suddenly a picture she did not remember taking, a close up of a laughing John and Mary and realised that these must be the ones Sherlock had taken. Eyes lighting up, she began to flick through them.

The next one was of her, smiling softly, looking out in to the middle distance, and the next of her biting her lips softly. The ones that followed involved a slowly fading smiled and her playing with strands of hair. There must have been dozens of pictures of her, animated in conversation, listening carefully, laughing, smiling, looking pensive, sad, a collection of other emotions she didn't remember feeling.

With wide eyes she put the camera back on the table and hurried back to her room, vowing to herself that she would pretend not to have seen them if he asked her. She didn't know what to think of them, and for at least an hour she just lay in bed confused.


	5. Five

FIVE

Stripping that girl and leaving the room was one of the most difficult things Sherlock Holmes had ever had to do. It wasn't like she would refuse him in her state if he tried it on with her– hell she probably would have enjoyed it – but he was not some animal and he had more control that to practically rape her in her bed while she was unable to stop him. He would have her, eventually, while she was sober and could give her consent without slurring her words and being so drunk she practically forgot her own name.

Still, he hadn't been able to utterly refrain from throwing her a little bait. He was constantly trying to plant these little seeds in her mind, try to make her question whether he wanted he or not and think about if she wanted him back. He wanted to begin to do more of the same with ideas about her submissiveness, but while she was drunk it seemed futile. She would only remember what she wanted to remember. _It's not because I didn't want to see you, love, it's because I do. _It was the perfect thing to say, if she was uninterested it would probably barely register in her drunken mind and she would forget it completely by the next morning as she probably would most of the events prior to, including, and after dinner, and if she did want him – and his suspicion that she did was only growing by the hour – then it would resonate with her deeply and hopefully she would have thought of very little else while she slept. He liked the idea that she might dream about him, though he suspected that if she did they would be decidedly more innocent than his dreams about her were. He could honestly say that he had never dreamt about a woman before because they were usually so easy, and if he wanted them then they were his, ripe for the picking. It was because she posed such a challenge that he wanted her so badly. He had always liked things which made him use his head a little; it was why he solved crimes. Perhaps for a woman to interest him they would have to pose a challenge too, certainly all the evidence pointed to that being the case. Once Serena was out of the picture he might have to test the theory on other women, but for now he could not even conceive of being interested in another woman.

He woke up to the smell of cooked bacon, and presumed that Serena must be up and cooking, so he left his bed, dressed and opened his door to leave and found the blonde poised to knock on his door. She looked started, but promptly replaced the expression with her signature beaming smile.

"I… I made you breakfast. Because you took care of me last night and I wanted to thank you for it and I wasn't sure what else to do for you. I mean, shit, do you even eat breakfast? This was a horrible idea." she babbled. He laughed and shook his head at her.

"Yes, I do find myself with quite an appetite." _There are a variety of other things I would much rather have you do if you wanted to thank me, but I suppose this will have to do for now, and admittedly it is a rather sweet gesture. _Her beam got even wider as he spoke and he walked out past her into the kitchen. The radio was playing some odd alternative music that he had never heard before, and he could hear her singing along as she walked behind him, so refrained from switching it off as she was obviously enjoying it. He sat down where she had laid out breakfast on the table. He wondered if she'd had to go downstairs to find food, and what dear Mrs Hudson would make of the shirt he was already so fond of her wearing.

He certainly didn't remember buying eggs, or even bacon. Come to think of it he really didn't remember the last time he had made food.

"Sorry the eggs are poached. I'm a seriously terrible cook, I can't fry them. Honestly I don't know why I thought cooking for you would be a good idea, you should ask John, I literally set his kitchen on fire once. And then when I tried to make my mothers breakfast for their anniversary and by the time I was done destroying everything they had one piece of burnt toast each because all the other food was inedible." He laughed and shook his head at her. She laughed with him, sounding a little unsure, perhaps not sure if he was laughing with her or at her and her general hopelessness. In all honesty it was a mixture of both. She seemed to shake it off fairly quickly and went back to singing along with the song on the radio. Her voice was very good actually, and he thought that if being an artist didn't work out then she might try a singing career.

"It's quite alright. I prefer them like that anyway." he said even though she had stopped listening. He took a few bites and saw she had stopped singing and was now watching him with bated breath, wondering if he would find the food satisfactory. She smiled at her and she looked very relieved. "I don't believe a word of what you just said. This food is excellent; you cannot be that bad a cook."

"Well, I have been attempting to get better. I might live on my own one day and then I'd have to cook and not rely on kindly French roommates to make my food for me." she said with a bright smile once again.

"Or perhaps you will just become a very rich artist and then you could employ a cook and a cleaner and a whole manner of other household staff to do the menial things for you whilst you go out and draw, paint, and take pretty pictures of things." She laughed but looked thoughtful; as it would be to anyone the idea of not having to perform any tasks for herself was clearly appealing to her. But speaking of pictures…

It had only been when he woke in the night, around four it must have been, that he realised just how many pictures he had taken on Serena's camera. He spent the next hour on his laptop, transferring the many he had taken of her to his files and then erasing them from the camera and hoping that she would forget he had ever taken any in the first place.

"What were you singing just now anyway?" he asked her. He was not interested of course, he had never heard the song, nor did he ever plan to again. The only music he ever listened to was his own violin playing, conceited as that may sound.

"That's What You Get by Paramore." she answered him quickly. "My sister and I used to like this station; we'd listen to it in the mornings on weekends." He frowned.

"I never even realised that you had a sister until just now. John never mentioned it to me, and I assumed if you did that you might have brought them with you." She looked down; taking another bite of her food as she slowly shook her head.

"No, uh, Marilyn and I don't talk much anymore."

He was not quite obtuse enough to press her for more details. Even though she would occasionally mention them in passing, her family was a topic that was strictly off limits, even to the likes of John. The idea of upsetting her was so abhorrent to her that he swore to himself he would not even go to John for details even though he desired to learn as much about her as he possibly could.

Once he was finished she took his plate and his own to the sink, correctly seeing that he did not own a dishwasher, and started running the water to wash them up with.

"You don't have to do that, Serena."

"I really don't mind. And whatever happened to 'sweetheart' and 'love'?" she asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "I was beginning to get used to the little terms of endearment, enjoy them in all honesty. Or are they reserved especially for when I'm drunk?" Was she teasing him? It was a miracle that he actually found it charming, in its own way.

"Reserved for when you're drunk." She feigned disappointment, but was quickly smiling again at him. "Or any other time you can barely remember my own name and lose the ability to put one foot in front of the other without clinging on to the arm of whatever unfortunate person happens to be closest to you." He was certainly no expert but he was fairly sure that the playful tone the two of them had adopted was flirting, or at least borderline. Flirting was simply not something he did. In his opinion it wasted time when you might as well just be fucking or looking for someone who you wouldn't have to charm in to bed. Yet somehow he was finding it enjoyable with Serena.

"The not being able to walk I will accept, but alcohol has never seemed to affect my memory. I must just be lucky." she said with a small shrug and the hint of a smirk playing, the corners of her lips twitching upwards.

"So you remember…"

"Everything." she cut in, turning from the dishes and looking him straight in the eyes, now fully smirking, before she turned back to the dishes she had been working on, turning the radio up and singing along louder than before. She looked so pleased with herself it was hard not to be amused.

He had to admit, even though he disliked admitting when he was wrong, perhaps giving so much away last night had been a bad idea. Although perhaps she was just pleased because, for the first time without fully screaming at him she had been able to talk with him as though he was a normal person rather than someone whose every command she needed to follow. And, even if it had been too much and made her overconfident, he was still not sorry about what he had said. _It's not because I didn't want to see you, love, it's because I do. _Because even if he had relinquished some of her control, it made her more comfortable around him, and if he was ever going to get her where he wanted her then she could not be constantly on edge around him, borderline frightened whenever he spoke to her, terrified of doing something wrong. Yes, he wanted her to want to please him but scaring her into submission was not the way he would get her to do that.

Although, come to think of it if she was a little apprehensive of him it might help. But not scared. Not entirely anyway.

John called a few minutes later while she was still washing up. Sherlock had found himself picking up her book, Gone With the Wind, which she had clearly made her way on to and was leafing through it, asking her questions about it that he was uninterested in learning the answer to. The book seemed pointless to him, as did many works of fiction that were not the selective few that he would read again and again.

"No, no!" she was saying, trying to speak through her own laugher. "It's a really beautiful moment. _I'll never go hungry again!_" she proclaimed in a surprisingly good Southern accent. "I swear I will make you watch the film with me tonight, so beware, because it's like four hours long and I can pretty much quote it all and I may be speaking with a Southern accent for most of tomorrow because it's harder to slip out of than it is to slip in to it." He was about to reply when her phone rang. "Could you please get that for me? I'll end up dropping it in the washing up bowl if I try." He picked her phone up off the counter, checking who it was before he answered, the names Marilyn and Carlie sticking in his head as people who, if they called, perhaps it would be best to lie about and put the phone down pretending it was a wrong number. Luckily it was John, and this therefore was not an issue.

"Hello John, it's Sherlock. Yes John she is here, but she's busy doing the washing up. No, I am not using her as my cleaning lady, she offered. I'm sure she still very much wants to go to the British Museum with you and Mary. Just you? I'm sure that's fine too. She's nodding at me so I'll take it as a yes. You want me to come? She's still nodding, I think she does too, either that or there's something wrong with her. She's glaring now. I'm going to put the phone down. See you in an hour."

"I'd better go change then." she said, having now finished the dishes. He nodded and she breezed past him slowly, blowing the bubbles that were resting on one hand on to him as she passed.

She walked in to her room and then poked her head around the door.

"Well, come on then. You did such a stellar job of choosing my dress last night that I may as well make use of you while I'm here and you're around to keep me from looking like an utter disaster like I usually do."

Okay, she was way too comfortable around him now. He missed the nervous little Serena he had liked so much before. She had given him no indication of submissiveness that morning, and he wanted her to, even just something small like she had been doing before. He had no idea what had changed for her since the night before, but he would right it, and he planned to do so before they went out.

The opportunity arose fairly quickly actually as he presented her with a cream dress from her wardrobe and she frowned.

"No, not that one. I don't even know why I packed it, I really don't like it."

"Yes this one, Serena. I kindly took the time to choose you an outfit like you asked me to, and you will now say thank you and go and change in to what I have chosen for you, do you understand?" His tone was firm, and not something that she was likely to question. She nodded docilely and stood from where she had sat on the bed and walked over to him and took the dress gently out of his hands.

"Thank you." He raised his eyebrows at her, and she looked confused as to what she was not doing for a moment. "Oh! Thank you, Mr Holmes."

"Better. Now, change, and meet me outside soon." He was back to being commandeering with her, and all the joking from over breakfast seemed to have been easily rectified. She held herself a little more confidently than she had yesterday at least which was again not something he would discourage, but she was behaving now a lot less like a potential girlfriend and a lot more like a potential submissive. It was a worry for him that she would get the wrong idea entirely, not fully comprehend from his subtle hints what exactly he wanted and assume that he just wanted to date her, and when she found out that he did not and that he really, when it boiled down to it, only desired her for sex, that she would reject it and go off in search of someone worthy of her full attention who she could end up being in a real relationship with instead of the kind they would have. Still, Serena might be different in a few ways but she was not yet making him want a relationship. Once he tried her out of course that might change, as he knew it did with some people, and he could already barely stand the thought of her being with someone else, but that was just the possessive side of being a Dominant showing through. He did know one thing however, which was if he did decide he wanted her as more than just his submissive he would still want her as that. It would have to be a part of any relationship he might have because he could not imagine giving up control so entirely.

Sherlock swiftly exited her room, and he did not hear one more complaint, even mumbled under her breath while she was alone and putting the dress on that she so desperately did not want to wear. Serena came out a few minutes later.

"Would you like to choose my shoes, or may I do that for myself?" she asked. He looked up at her and got up quickly from his seat. She was now asking him to do this little dominant activity for her; he was of course not going to refuse. Without answering her he walked in to her bedroom and chose white pumps – did this girl even own anything else – and handed them to her as he passed her in the doorway.

"Anything else, Serena?"

"I'm sorry for trying to reject your choice after you spent your time choosing it for me and I asked you to. I won't do it again." _She doesn't even realise that she's submitting to me, and somehow that makes it even more appealing._

Mercifully the front door rang before either of them could say anything else and before he could Serena was smiling and walking over to open the door to her uncle.

"Serena!" he sounded happy to see her. "You look lovely." Sherlock simply shot her a triumphant look, saying nothing as the trio made their way down to John's car.

* * *

I wanted to thank everyone for reading this far, you're all fab and I very much hope you carry on. I fully plan for Chapters 6, 7, and maybe even 8 to be up by this time tomorrow, although after this chapter posting may slow down a little through the week due to other commitments which are way less fun than writing, but what can you do? Reviews are always appreciated of course, as are follows, favourites, and quite simply seeing that people have read this far.


	6. Six

SIX

Having woken up that morning feeling more secure and clear about where she stood with Sherlock than she had done at any point before, she left his flat with him and her uncle just as confused as the night before. She had, for the first time, engaged him in a conversation where she was not too nervous to speak properly to him, yet for whatever reason this was unacceptable to him. The picture that she had found on her camera mixed with what he had said to her had made her confident – he had to like her, there was no other reasonable explanation. She found the whole thing with the dress confusing, as she did most of his actions. Why should it matter whether she wore it or not, when he could just pick her another or tell her to choose one for herself? And why did she so blindly follow his instruction even when she didn't want to? She hated the stupid dress, cream was an awful colour and she would inevitably spill something on it and look ridiculous for the rest of the day and it was far too summery for October anyway. Obviously, Sherlock didn't give a damn about any of that, he cared only that she followed his instructions, which she did after he made her feel suitably bad about trying to disobey then and questioning him.

Serena had never had a problem with men before. Sure, she was hardly the picture of monogamy, he one and only official boyfriend had lasted three weeks before she got bored of him and broke up with him, but she was used to being calm around them. They had never disorientated her like Sherlock did. She was pretty, confident, and she carried herself well, there was no reason why they should pose a problem to her.

Forced to sit by herself in the back of the car she listened to Sherlock describing the details of some case from a few weeks ago to John, who despite not having been there still seemed to want to write about it on his blog. Once they were done with that, they seemed to remember that she was there.

"So, Serena, what have you been doing lately?" John asked her cheerfully. She realised he was trying to make up for having been unsupportive the night before.

"Mostly taking pictures. Edinburgh is really lovely this time of year with all the golden leaves on the ground. I'm looking forward to the winter so I can get some pictures of everything covered in snow, and I was thinking about heading further north for a few days to get some mountains in the snow. Jenny, my friend with the gallery, she says she's more than willing to display any of my stuff whenever I want her to because it went so well last time. And, I really am getting better at taking them. Some of the ones I took last night in the restaurant were really good." she told them, smiling proudly, for once able to stop being as self-critical and admit that what she had taken was good.

"When did you look at those pictures, Serena?" Sherlock asked her, turning to face her now. His tone was somewhat strained. _Shit, he knows I saw all the ones he took of me. Hold on, why is this a bad thing? If he didn't want me to take them he should have left the camera alone and left the picture taking to me._

"Last night." she said, looking him dead in the eyes. "I got up to get some water a couple of hours after I went to bed to combat the hangover I might have had otherwise."

"I did think you were doing surprisingly well given how much you drunk." John commented and she smiled brightly and nodded, still looking at Sherlock, who seemed to be struggling to retain composure.

While she was washing up earlier, her comment had scored her one point if they were now, as they seemed to be, trying to one-up each other. His being able to force her to wear a dress she hated gave him one point too. But now, with him knowing that she'd seen the many pictures he had taken of her before he'd deleted them, which she had realised he had done when she went to look at them again that morning, she had definitely managed to score another point. _2-1 to me Holmes. Unless I dreamt them. Which I'm fairly sure I didn't because my dream about you last night was decidedly less innocent than a few pictures of me fully clothed at a restaurant with two other people._

"Yeah, a couple of glasses of water always do the trick. Rehydrates the brain or something along those lines."

Her mother had told her this a good many years ago when she had started drinking again and she didn't want Carlie to find out. Serena, who could only have been about six, had wandered down late at night when she had heard the tap. Her mother had a black eye and there were two empty wine bottles on the counter. Still, Harry had smiled brightly at her and picked her up and sat her on the counter and kissed the top of her head, pleading with the young girl not to tell her other mother what she had seen and that it wouldn't matter anyway because the water would make it all better. She wouldn't have a headache like she sometimes did in the morning and Carlie wouldn't get mad at her again. Harry had taken her back to bed where she had simply sat up all night until Marilyn in the twin bed next to hers had woken up, rubbing her little eyes. Serena had walked over to her bed and gotten in under the covers with her like she did some mornings and held the smaller girl tightly even though she had squirmed and laughed and told her to go away back to her own bed.

She was startled when they stopped, having gone off into a little daydream. She took a moment to ground herself before she went to open the door, only to have Sherlock open it for her and offer her his arm. Which she took of course, without question, and then mentally scolded herself for letting him have the upper hand of that situation.

_Hmm, you can have a quarter of a point for that. I'm still ahead._

She heard a phone ringing and frowned and looked at John who it seemed to be coming from, who was already fumbling in his pockets to try and find it. Sherlock and Serena stopped walking to wait while he answered it. He spoke for a while before he put his phone away.

"Look, Mary's having some moving related crisis so I think I need to go back for a while and help her sort it. She doesn't think it'll take too long, so how about I meet you both for lunch in three hours – Sherlock, you know where you're going, don't you?" He nodded and John looked relieved and hurried back to the car. She realised far too late for someone supposedly intelligent that this meant she would be spending the next three hours with Sherlock by herself, silently cursing John for having accidentally orchestrated this situation.

"Shall we continue then?" Sherlock asked her and she smiled softly and nodded. He began walking again, pulling her gently with him.

"Why did you take those pictures of me?" she asked quietly. She hoped as soon as the words had left her mouth that she had been too quiet for him to hear over the busy street but she could feel his eyes on her and visibly winced as she realised he had. _Well there's no point in pretending either of you doesn't know about them now. He knows you saw them; it is not unreasonable to ask for an explanation. _"More to the point, why did you get rid of them? I mean, it's not like I mind you having taken them."

"There was nothing else I thought was interesting enough to take pictures of." _Damn his flattery, that definitely gets him at least half a point. _"Besides," he said, smirking now, an expression which definitely unsettled her. "I didn't get rid of them. I merely deleted them from your camera." _Okay, if he's saying her made copies then I have no reply to that. I'm not sure if it's more disconcerting that he did that or that he took them in the first place. Although I am pretty sure that counts as another point, regardless of how unnerving the action itself might have been. Hell, that means I'm back to losing again and I literally have no more ammo to throw at him to try and regain my leadership._

_I think I'm going to have to accept the inevitability of losing whatever this stupid little game is that he's decided we're playing._

Sherlock might not have had much knowledge of art, but apparently his History was up to a lot more than hers. She was really only interested in specific areas of History – Henry VIII and his many affairs had always been a personal favourite if only because of the fantastically sexy TV series The Tudors which she owned the boxset of and had watched no less than twenty seven times the whole way through. Sherlock seemed to be more interested in the Greek stuff though, and apart from having read the Percy Jackson books (which she was beginning to suspect were not all that accurate) she had an incredibly limited knowledge. Still, she enjoyed just listening to him talk about it, and she actually took in what he was saying, just as he had taken in what she had been saying about art and photography the night before.

_Hmm, maybe there's some sexy TV series about this that I can watch so that I'm all clued up about it. It would be nice to have some common ground with him._

Eventually, Serena had to give up and went off for a coffee in the little café and left Sherlock wandering around on his own. He had suggested it, and the fact that she had complied gave him another point in the mental tally she was keeping. She really needed to step up her game if she had any hope of winning.

She ordered a latte mostly because there was nothing more hipster available (it was a guilty pleasure of hers to go to Starbucks with her best friend and roommate Elle, both with their hipster glasses on to order an Iced Caramel Macchiato or a Chai Crème Frappuccino with non-fat cream and cinnamon on top and pretend to take pictures of the cups for Instagram and talk pretentiously about nothing while they drank them and then laugh for the rest of the day about it). She sat at a table on her own, tracing the rim of her cup with her index finger.

"Uh, Serena?" she looked up, the voice was too unsure and unfamiliar to be Sherlock and she smiled when she saw the man he had introduced her to at the crime scene the day before. She gestured for him to sit down upon seeing all the other tables were taken up, and he gladly took the seat.

"Greg right? Or Graham if you happen to be Sherlock." He grinned at her and nodded. "Are you off today or has there been a murder while I've been sitting her oblivious to anything that's going on?"

"No, it's just my day off. I'm here with my brother and his kids but I got bored of their squealing and I hadn't had a coffee yet today." She laughed softly and took a sip of her drink and he did the same. "I saw Sherlock around here earlier, so I'm guessing either you two came here together or he's followed you here, and worryingly that second option does sound like the more likely of the two. She smiled warmly at him and shook her head, twisting one strand of hair around her index finger.

"We came together. John was supposed to be here too but there was some crisis at home that he had to go and deal with. Then he talked to me about History for over an hour and taught me more than five years of History GCSE did and then he told me to go and get a coffee. I think he realised I was getting a little bored of Greek mythology. And now I am coming to realise that I miss my pretentious hipster Starbucks coffee because this is a really foul latte which I feel like I have to finish, because if I don't then I have no idea how I'm supposed to deal with Sherlock for the rest of the day." Greg laughed yet looked genuinely sympathetic towards her plight. He did have to work with Sherlock at times; he must therefore know what a complete and utter arse he was most of the time, although she doubted from the brief interaction she had observed between the pair that Sherlock was anything like what he was like with her when he dealt with Greg. The ordering around and slight intimidation coupled with the disapproval of anything she did without his explicit permission seemed to be something he reserved entirely for her.

In her not so expert opinion that did not constitute a good thing. It meant she was in this on her own.

The pair of them chatted for a while – turned out when she fleetingly mentioned it that Greg liked The Tudors too and she therefore had a lot to say to him. Actually, Greg liked most of the TV shows, books, movies, artists, writers, and whatever else that she did. At first she'd wondered if he was just agreeing with her so she'd like him more – men did that sometimes and it annoyed her no end – but he seemed to have quite a bit of knowledge about each one, enough that she could tell he was very genuine. She liked that he was truthful; it was one of the qualities she admired the most in other people, and she liked the reminder than it really was just Sherlock who she couldn't have a conversation with and not suddenly something that was happening with all men she attempted to speak to.

"Okay, I love Batman but there is no way in hell you can say it's better than Thor. Thor is freaking awesome! One word: Loki. You cannot beat Loki; he is the best thing, followed closely by Kat Dennings as Darcy."

"Batman has Heath Ledger." he pointed out.

"Yeah, the second film, and if all three were as good as that one then obviously it would be better, but you have to look at it as a collective trilogy, and the first one is god-awful and the third one is just average. Thor is consistently amazing. And it is sad how much you know about superheroes at your age." Her eyes sparkled and she was kidding, but it was enough for him to flick a large piece of the chocolate cake he had bought at her. She squealed, trying desperately to try and keep it off her dress.

"Serena?" she heard a voice behind her, and that time it was Sherlock. Her cheeks flushed involuntarily and she looked round at him and smiled brightly.

"We were just discussing Marvel vs. DC and we got a little carried away." she explained quickly, although that seemed rather pointless as it was clear that Sherlock had little to no idea what any of what he had overheard actually meant. They could have been talking in code for all he knew. "We must have been here ages." she said, feeling the side of her half-drunk cup of coffee with her index finger and realising that it had long since gone cold. "I'm so sorry; I've kept you here so long."

"Please don't apologise, it was nice to have such an in depth conversation for once about something other than police work." She smiled brightly.

"Serena, we have to leave now, we need to meet John." His tone was commandeering and she knew whether she wanted to or not that she was expected to obey. She stood from her seat and looked down at the man she had been sat with, still smiling although it was admittedly a little strained now. She had managed to forget the confusion that Sherlock posed her and replace it with a genuinely nice, friendly person. She was actually sorry to be leaving Greg and instead having to be alone with Sherlock again.

"It was so nice to see you again." she said genuinely to him. "I hope I see more of you before I go back home." He nodded, eyes fixed on her.

"Yeah, that would be good actually. Have Sherlock bring you to another, less bloody case and we might actually be able to let you inside. Who knows, you could show Sherlock up and figure it out quicker than him." _Can you imagine how good that would feel? I can't think of anything better than that to put him in his place. It would easily be worth fifty points and there's no way he could beat that._

Sherlock was tugging her arm and had begun walking before she could reply again. She knew better than to complain and said nothing as he linked their arms again as had now become commonplace while they were walking together.

Lunch went fairly well, John was only a little late and he brought Mary with him. The pair managed to coax Sherlock in to going to their new home after the meal was finished and helping them finish the nursery. She offered her help but it was immediately refused. She was simply given the keys to Sherlock's flat and sent home by herself in a taxi.


	7. Seven

SEVEN

It was dark by the time John and Mary let Sherlock leave and go back to the beautiful blonde goddess who would be waiting in his flat.

His previous theory had been proved correct when he saw her with Lestrade; the thought of her with other men had been bothering him for a while but seeing her there laughing and engaging in typically Serena excitable, vibrant conversation with him, even though from the tone and nature of the conversation it was clear they were utterly platonic, had bothered him even more than he was willing to admit to himself. He would just have to make sure to keep her around him. He hadn't much liked her being out of his sight anyway, and it could have been a lot worse than Lestrade, it could have been a good looking man closer to her own age trying to pick up his Serena, and he swore if that ever happened no matter how much she protested he would throw her over his shoulder and carry her out, regardless of where they might be.

Still, he had picked her up dinner on the way home, remembering how she had expressed a fondness for Chinese food the night before, especially Chow Mein. She had left the door to the apartment unlocked, and he was balancing the bag as he reached down to the door handle, able to hear her on the other side, talking to someone. He wondered if Mrs Hudson might have come up when he heard the other voice – male, unmistakably male – and pushed the door open, ready to drop the food and throw her over his shoulder if he needed to. The thought of her, for whatever reason having brought a man back to his flat made him immeasurably angry. Surely she would not have been so completely stupid, would she?

As soon as he was inside though it was clear, despite how they were conversing, that the visitor was not there to see her, and had probably come with no knowledge that she would be there and had been surprised to find her. Serena looked up and smiled.

"Oh good, you brought food, I'm starving! What did you bring? Your brother came round like an hour ago and I told him to stay because I didn't think you'd be long. Why didn't you tell me he was coming before? Why were you so long anyway? Did you go somewhere else?" she asked with a small frown. He ignored all her questions.

"Serena, go and change, I won't have you spoiling the dress I like so much. When you're done you can divide the food between three plates as I'm sure Mycroft will want to join us, won't you, brother?" Mycroft smirked, which Serena obviously took as a yes before she took the food from Sherlock and took it in to the kitchen and went in to her room to change shutting the door behind her.

"How obedient." Mycroft mused, looking to her closed door, remaining seated. Sherlock took the seat opposite him. "And very pretty, not that you'd notice, I'm sure. Where on earth did you find this one?"

"She's John's niece." he said, gritting his teeth. Just because Mycroft had long since guessed about his private life did not mean he was willing to discuss it. Especially not her.

"I see. And does John realise what you're doing, or what you intend on doing I should say, as it's obvious that nothing has really happened yet, with his niece?" he asked him with a quirked eyebrow. Sherlock sighed, running his hands slowly through his curls, refusing to make eye contact with him or even reply. "I'll take that as a no then. Could you not find someone your own age? Regardless, she's a charming girl who deserves a lot better than the likes of you. And it's obvious from the way she conducts herself, slight obedience to you or not, that she is not what you would like her to be." It was said utterly maliciously and as something intended to anger him but Sherlock found himself for once not caring. All he cared about now was whether Mycroft had said anything to Serena about any of this, and if he had if she would take any notice of it or dismiss it as nonsense. "Don't fret, I haven't mentioned this to her, nor do I intend on doing so. As amusing as your love life is to me I did have other things to discuss with you, but they can wait until you are without company."

"I do so enjoy it when you drop by." he sighed with narrowed eyes, hearing music begin playing from Serena's room. She seemed incapable of doing anything without the radio on.

"As do I. It's always a pleasure to meet your new friends. I'm just sorry I interrupted your evening which I'm sure would have been a wonderfully awkward event which despite your best efforts ended with the two of you going to bed in separate rooms, as it will undoubtedly continue to. And before you spout some nonsense about how I should either be supportive or keep my mouth shut, this was too good an opportunity to pass up. The fact that you can even hope she might be interested in you is laughable. She is Aphrodite, and you are not even her Hephaestus, you're just nothing."

He was about to spit something spiteful back at his brother when the music was switched off and she came out of her room and went to the kitchen.

_He's right, much as it might pain me to admit it even silently. She might follow a few simple orders and flirt a little with me when I let her but when it boils down to it she's better than I am, and beyond a fantasy, nothing will ever happen. I just have to get her out of my head and accept that._

Smiling, Serena brought them their food and then went back to the kitchen to bring hers, opting to sit on the floor rather than the other chair further away from the two of them. She stayed very quiet and just let Sherlock and Mycroft talk to each other, correctly judging that things were a little tense from how strained and forced the conversation was and realising that keeping quiet would be the best thing to do under the circumstances. He wanted to take a few digs at Mycroft but he was too worried that if he did that snide, conniving bastard would say something to Serena. He wished that he hadn't come over when she was here, that she could have been spared the torment that was meeting him and that the reality check his dear brother had just given him had never come. His deluded, dirty fantasies wouldn't even occupy his mind now, his head was full of Serena and him walking in on her the same way he had today when she was with Mycroft, except now it was her and a plethora of other, more worthy men. He held his hand up when Serena went to take their plates and did it himself. He needed to be somewhere out of the judging gaze of his brother, who had now decided to speak to Serena himself, talking to her about art. He would know more about the one topic she was interested in that Sherlock did, wouldn't he? It was a genuine struggle not to start smashing the dishes.

By the time Sherlock had calmed down a little Mycroft was putting his coat on and he was incredibly relieved that he was now leaving. Sherlock stubbornly refused to even say goodbye, and satisfied with the chaos he knew he had left, Mycroft left and shut the door with a loud slam after he had passed through it.

Serena looked concerned, and she looked thoughtful before she spoke, as though saying anything at all was against her better judgement, but she felt she had to anyway.

"I'm sorry I let him in and let him wait here."

"Why would you apologise for that?" he asked, a little confused as to where she was trying to go with this. She sighed softly and went to sit down and he followed her, appreciating again that she had so quickly grasped that she was not to sit in his chair, but the other one.

"You very clearly didn't want him here and because you were so quiet over dinner and you look kind of… I don't know, just different, and I probably shouldn't be but I am worried. What exactly did your brother say to you when I was in the other room?" she asked him. Her tone was much less curious than it was concerned. The fact that she had noticed seemed like a good thing to him actually, even in his currently hopeless state. He wouldn't delude himself that she might miss his ordering her around, but at least she had noticed. Obviously she didn't think it was a normal thing to do, so she picked up on it when he did. He was already missing his delusions.

"No, Serena, it's fine." Of course it wasn't and she looked no more reassured than she had done when she asked, but she seemed to know to let it go.

He decided that a shower might be the way to go, feeling slightly better at the prospect of standing under the scalding hot water and scrubbing away the memory of Mycroft. It seemed a little better when he got out, and he felt a little more controlled. He could hear music coming from Serena's room but it was quiet enough that he could happily go out to the lounge in his robe to play his violin. Really, that was all he planned to do for the rest of the evening because he found it calming and didn't see the point in trying to do anything else while he was still so annoyed at both Mycroft and himself.

He frowned, halfway through a composing breakthrough, when Serena is the other room decided to turn her music up. Still, it was acceptable, and he carried on until that song ended and it changed to another and she turned it up more still. The entire flat was practically shaking with the volume, and even if it hadn't bothered him it must be bothering Mrs Hudson whose bedroom was directly underneath Serena's. She went to bed early most nights now and surely she would not appreciate being woken up by a certain loud, blonde guest singing – or more correctly shouting – along to whatever the hell it was she was actually listening to. He carefully put the instrument he had been playing back in its case and slowly went to her door, knocking and then realising it was futile because her music was far too loud for her to hear anything outside. He could have been murdered and she wouldn't have noticed.

_Or cared._ A small voice in his head added which sounded suspiciously like Mycroft, and he took a moment to quiet it before he opened the door. If it was loud outside then inside her room was deafening, and with a deep sigh he wondered how anyone could bear music to be that loud.

She was stood on the bed in his shirt again, although jumping wildly was probably a more accurate term than stood was. Why did she look better in his shirt than he did? It suited her so well. He hadn't been able to admire until just then how long and beautiful her legs were, and her hair looked even better as it bounced with her, rising up in a beautiful blonde curtain from her back. She was singing into a hairbrush and still sounded good somehow even though she was now opting to scream the words rather than to sing them properly like she had been doing that morning. He watched her for a few moments before she noticed him smirking in the doorway and her eyes widened and she scrambled down from the bed and quickly turned the radio off. He really had never been more appreciative of silence.

"I'm so sorry, I know it was too loud and I thought you wouldn't mind or hear because you might be doing the mind palace thing that John said you do and I don't know why I ever listen to John because so far everything he told me about you has been wrong, not that it's an entirely bad thing that you don't sit there for hours zoned out and not able to hear me but I would like to know like one thing about you that isn't wrong or completely different for me…" He held his hand up at her. "I'm sorry; I know most of that was off topic."

"Just, keep it down in the evening, okay?" She nodded compliantly.

"I should probably go to sleep anyway, so if you wouldn't mind, I'll just see you in the morning." He nodded and left her room quickly, shutting the door, and watching as he made himself tea in the kitchen as she switched her light out and wished again that Mycroft hadn't been right about them continuing to go to bed in different rooms.

He sunk down in his chair and thought about everything, trying to file away what Mycroft had said somewhere he would not remember it come the morning, but knowing full well that he would no matter how hard he tried. Deciding to do something better he simply sat with his hands together under her chin. _Go through everything Sherlock, pick out all the times she gave you even a glimmer of hope and just pray that this time, it's you who's right, not him. Remember how last night she buried her head in to you while you carried her? That can't just be nothing. I won't let it be nothing. I won't let any of this be nothing._

"Sherlock?"

His name came from a meek voice, and it took a moment for him to come back to himself and look down at the girl holding both his hands, knelt on the floor looking up at him worriedly.

"Mind palace, sweetheart." he said softly, and she looked both startled and relieved when he spoke to her. "You said John told you about it, well, that's what it looks like in the flesh. Why are you out of bed?" She smiled softly at him and he had to smile back at her. He liked that she was worried about him.

"Just to get a drink. And then I saw you sitting here and I thought you might have passed out or died or something." She got very quiet when she said 'died', as though it wasn't something she particularly wanted to think about him doing, and that thought in itself made him smile at her and shake his head.

"No, sweetheart, just thinking."

"See, now I'm beginning to think that the terms of endearment might be a tired thing rather than a drunk thing." He laughed and nodded.

"Yes, perhaps they are. Or maybe it's just a Serena thing." She lit up at this and her happiness was infectious, if only for a moment. "How long were you sat there trying to wake me up? Please tell me you haven't been there longer than a day – I have been known to slip into little trances like that which last more than a day. It didn't feel like I was gone for that long though, more like a couple of hours."

"I think I've been here about ten minutes trying to wake you. I knew you were breathing, and you were sat up so I knew you hadn't passed out, but I thought I better try and wake you just in case something was wrong. Are you going to go to bed now?"

"No, love, I don't really want to. I'm quite happy just to be out here."

She frowned. Clearly she was still not accustomed to his ways. It was very rare that he slept in his own bed, and the two nights previous that he had were mostly because he would rather she did not come out and find him asleep in his chair early in the mornings. He hadn't realised that if she did find him she would worry, like she was doing now that something was wrong. It wasn't really anymore. He was still quiet and not quite as engaged with her as before, but only because he hated hopeless things, and if there was no chance with Serena then he did not see the point in continuing the little game with her. He just needed to wait it out until she was gone, find another poor woman, and take it out on her that the woman he really wanted did not want him back.

"If you stay out here then I do too." Serena said stubbornly. _Does that mean if I go to bed she comes with me too? Because that sounds much better to me. _He smirked to himself, glad he was able to add his silent input into their conversation again. Perhaps The Mycroft Effect was beginning to wear off, and hopefully with a little sleep he might be back to his normal, slightly less self-pitying self by the morning. He shook his head at her and she raised her eyebrows, obviously for once willing to stand her ground and actually fight him on this if he really did try to send her away.

She smiled brightly and let go of his hands, which he had forgotten she had a hold of and cursed himself for not having savoured the very few moments that she was willingly touching him for. She sat with her back against the front of the chair and his legs to one side of her. He fell asleep watching her, and woke to see her curled up, covered with his coat which she must have retrieved seeing it was the first thing on the coatrack, with her head on his lap, and he felt decidedly more optimistic about his chances than when he had gone to sleep.


	8. Eight

EIGHT

When Serena woke she found herself a little confused for a moment before she realised where she was. She quickly move her head from Sherlock's lap, realising that falling asleep on him twice in the space of two days might be deemed socially unacceptable with a person you've not even known for a week. She looked up at him, wondering if he might still be asleep since, you know, he hadn't physically removed her head from his lap and she thought he surely would have done if he had noticed. As it happened he was there, awake, and reading, luckily not zoned out completely like the night before in the way that had scared her so much. She really had thought he was dead in that chair, ridiculous as it sounded, and she'd just sat there like a little lost child for over an hour – although she had told him it was ten minutes – hoping he would wake. She only said his name when he looked like he was coming round. Maybe if she'd been more sensible she would have called an ambulance but she knew he was probably alright, John's mentioning the mind palace before stuck in her head so she had resolved to wait it out and call someone if there was no change in a couple of hours. Mrs Hudson would have known what to do, and she had been so helpful the day before when Serena had tried to make breakfast she was sure she wouldn't mind.

One of his hands was wound in her hair and he was absently stroking through it and she wished she hadn't moved her head so she could have just enjoyed the intimate feeling moment for a while longer.

"I was half expecting you to have gone back to bed." he said, not looking away from the book or taking his hand out of her hair. She shook her head softly.

"I told you I was going to stay out here with you." She moved and realised that there was something on top of her and remembered, half asleep, getting up and retrieving his coat to cover herself, thinking it was way too far to the bedroom to bother going there to get her duvet or something else warm. "Sorry, I kind of decided your coat would make a good blanket. I was really tired."

"Serena, sweetheart, please just stop apologising for every little thing. Or, at least, just don't today. I'm not in the mood." _Wait, is he exhaustedly calling a ceasefire on all the commanding me around?_ Serena did a mental dance at this. She didn't mind him doing it, but all the time was kind of relentless, and when they had been having breakfast the morning before it had been so much nicer than at any other point. She just wanted it to be like that most of the time and for him to save the commanding for special occasions. It was kind of sexy at first but then it just scared her and she worried constantly about doing something wrong. And besides, she had just been asleep on his lap and she was still half asleep and vulnerable, so really it wouldn't be fair to start yelling at her and ordering her around before she could even comprehend what he was saying, or she hoped at least he would think this.

She pulled the coat off her lap and put her arms in to it and wrapped it around herself, but not doing it up. Sherlock pulled her hair out of it so it was not trapped under the coat and then got up. She must have looked disappointed because he chuckled when he turned to her and shook his head softly.

"Relax, sweetheart. But you can't wear the purple shirt and the coat without the scarf as well." He pulled his blue scarf off the coat rack and walked back over to her, wrapping it around her neck and smiling proudly at his work. "Perfect. Where's your camera?" She nodded towards the kitchen and he went to get it. "Up." She stood, aware that he was half ordering her around again. He walked into her room and she hurried after him. As she walked in he took a picture of her, and she laughed as he took another. "What was that song you had on last night?"

"To Die For, by Tonight Alive." she answered him, and he found the iPod dock on the dresser and put it on and found the song for her.

"Now, on the bed." She raised her eyebrows at him and he sighed deeply. "I want you to do what you were doing last night, Serena, the crazy dancing. I want to remember how happy and bright and beautiful you were before I ruined it all. Don't even think about arguing with me." She climbed up on to the bed, feeling a thousand times more self-conscious than she would by herself. It didn't actually take long for her to shake that off and laugh, singing along into a damn hairbrush and looking utterly ridiculous. He kept, in between picture taking, finding more items for her to put on, a bowler hat, her ugly hipster glasses, a string of pearls from god knows where, and for the first time with him she actually felt relaxed and happy, and, well, definitely not normal, but not normal in the good way like she usually was rather than the awkward way she usually was around him. Quite a few songs came and went, all upbeat, none of which he knew and half of which she got most of the words to wrong but she didn't care.

The spell was only broken when the door to her bedroom opened and in the doorframe stood her uncle, looking confused. She looked away embarrassedly, and then back again to see Sherlock snap a picture of his confused expression and just started laughing so hard she fell back on to the bed. Sherlock offered her his hand and she pulled herself up and went over to John and simply took the hat off her head and put it on his and stood back so Sherlock could take more pictures of him.

"What are the two of you doing?" They looked at each other and grinned like children.

"We were just having fun John. After Mycroft came here last night I felt awful and your delightful niece spent the evening and this morning cheering me up." She noticed he omitted the fact she had slept on the floor with her head in his lap and thought that it was probably a good thing that he had. John already didn't look pleased about her being in a state of half-undress and letting him take pictures of her. Okay, putting it like that definitely sounded bad, but it couldn't look that bad. She had a huge coat on right? That had to help. Of course it didn't help that the shirt, the coat, the scarf, and the hat, although she'd never seen him in it, were all his. It certainly didn't help that her hair was so messed up or that the room was trashed and there were blankets everywhere or that there was a camera involved in the first place. The evidence was annoyingly condemning. But surely John wouldn't think that they had slept together, even though they kind of had, purely platonically.

"Right. Well, Serena, if you're done here then you can get dressed and we'll leave as soon as you're ready." John said. Crap. That was his genuinely scary 'I was in the army, don't fuck with me' voice. He meant business.

"Is Sherlock not coming today?" she asked, hoping neither detected the disappointment which her voice was laced with. They both shook their heads. She suspected neither had discussed the decision with the other, but luckily it had worked out. John probably just didn't want him there because of, well, everything. That morning had been a series of unbroken, endlessly unspoiled moments and she resented him deeply for having come into her room and shattered the illusion of perfection.

"No, I have to go to the morgue…" she could practically see the 'sweetheart' struggling to leave his lips as he held it back. No reason to make John any more annoyed. She smiled at him to show she knew the sentiment was there.

The two of them left the room and she could hear them in the kitchen conversing, and even though she knew she shouldn't, she pressed her ear to the door and strained to listen to the conversation they were having while Sherlock made her uncle a cup of tea. He had always liked tea when he was stressed. She remembered because when her and her sister had come to stay with him once for two weeks he had drunk at least two hundred cups of it as they drove him completely up the wall.

"John, it's not like anything happened. And even if it did, you said yourself, she could do a lot worse than me and you said you wouldn't mind. As it happens she is completely uninterested in me so nothing is ever very likely to happen." _Hold on, Uncle John gave him permission for something to happen? That's not at all unsettling… And completely uninterested? Damn, I must be giving off all the wrong signals. Maybe that's his really polite, John-approved way of saying that _he_ is not interested in _me_ but also not wanting to reject his niece. Great. Either way nothing is ever going to happen with this guy._

"I know Sherlock, I just wasn't entirely sure how to react upon entering a room with my niece barely clothed and you holding a camera." _Oh God, don't put it like that, that make it sound so much less innocent than it was._

"Perhaps next time you should knock." _This isn't an entirely unfair request._

"Perhaps next time you should stay in your own damn room and not take pictures of my niece who you obviously fancy. You do still fancy her, right?" _Okay, no. Stupid John being wrong again about everything - there is now way in hell Sherlock Holmes has a crush on me._

"I didn't before. I thought she was enthralling and beautiful but that was it. And I mean obviously I wanted her-"

"Sherlock!" It was yelled, and even if she hadn't been listening she would have heard.

"John, keep your voice down, she can hear you. Hell, most of London can hear you. I know it's awful and she's your niece and I shouldn't have, but I did. And then Mycroft was over here being a prick as usual and she was so _sweet_ afterwards, John." She knew the expression of confusion John would be giving him would be similar, if not identical to the one that she herself was wearing.

"Sherlock, are you in love with my niece?"

_Why would you say something like that John? You're such an idiot! I was just starting to get him to behave like a normal person around me and you have to ruin it by saying something like that. He'll never speak to me again unless it's to order me to make him a cup of tea or say something sarcastic. Well, it was good – like, really, really good – while it lasted. And he's never going to call me sweetheart again. That's the worst part somehow. I was really getting used to that. No man ever gave me a pet name before, and I sure as hell didn't expect on from Sherlock. Oh to hell with you, John. Why did you have to ruin whatever this was with eight fucking words?_

Hold on. Where was the immediate no? He should have laughed, chortled even and told John he would make a wonderful comedian or something else stupid and then waltzed out of his fault leaving her, for want of a better word, heartbroken, although she wasn't sure if at this stage where nothing had happened that it would constitute any kind of real heartbreak. She had never been heartbroken before. She was fairly sure that she didn't want to be.

"It's a bit premature to call it love, John."

_Oh fuck._

"Fuck." John said, echoing her sentiment. You could tell that she was related to him, their reactions to any situation were practically identical. "You actually are, aren't you, in your own strange little Sherlock way."

"I don't know. Maybe I could be, not now, in a few weeks." She found herself smiling to herself and running her fingers over his scarf that was still around her neck.

"She won't be here in a few weeks Sherlock. She has a life, a home, things to go back to which don't involve you." _No John, shut up, please. Stop ruining this for me. Stop trying to get him to stop, because I want him to love me so badly._

"I know she will. And before you say it, no, I would never ask her to stay here, no matter what might come to pass between us, if anything does, which, as my brother so kindly pointed out, it never will, because she is Aphrodite and I am nothing." _I actually want to murder his brother for saying that. That has to be why he was so strange last night and this morning. _ She wanted desperately to run out and throw her arms around him and just hold him and tell him that she would never be too good for him and offer her assistance as a personal assassin if he needed someone to permanently take care of his brother for him. "And there are the other complications as well John."

"I thought you were done with all that." John sounded strained now, and protective.

"No, I just let you think I was." _Okay, no, whatever it is you're talking about now, I hereby resolve to not give a single fuck about what they are. I want you, you're flitting about with the idea that you might be in love with me, I think we're good to go with this one, Holmes. I'm not going to allow you to say that and then talk your way out of it when you come face to face with me and we talk about it. Because we will. This evening. I need the rest of the day to process what I just heard you saying._

Deciding she had heard enough, she got dressed in a black dress with a ribbon for a choker and checked herself in the mirror before she walked out, carrying her favourite purple pumps in her hand. She didn't see the point in owning any other kind of shoes when these were all she could walk in.

And as she passed Sherlock their eyes met and she gave him a soft smile and somehow she was certain he knew she had been listening. What was more, she didn't care that he did, because she would tell him that evening that she had been, and she felt it was only fair to give him some time to prepare what exactly that was going to be, because she refused to go easy on him. She would leave the idiotic awkwardness behind and just talk to him. Hey, if she got to sleep resting on him again at the end of it she was going to be the last one to complain about it.

"Would you like tea?" Sherlock asked her. She nodded, realising that she hadn't had a cup that morning, what with the slightly odd photo-shoot that she had entered in to with Sherlock and the fact that John was here at least an hour and a half before he said he would be, which had displeasingly cut in to her time alone with Sherlock. It amused her that just a few hours ago he had dreaded being by herself with him, and one slightly vulnerable night's sleep later it was all she wanted. She wanted even more to be by herself with him now given what she had overheard passing between him and her uncle when they thought that she was well and truly out of earshot.

John was in the living room, and she was staring in to space sipping the last of her tea. Sherlock walked and stood next to her, and she looked up at him with a bright smile.

"How much of that did you hear, Serena?" he sounded tired when he asked, a little worried, perhaps apprehensive about why she hadn't just walked out here, shot him down completely and then gone in to her room to pack up her stuff, because anywhere was better than staying with him.

_That is a guy with some deep-set issues when it comes to whether he's good enough or not._

"I think I heard most of it. I had to get dressed obviously so there might be pieces I missed, but as far as I'm concerned I heard all the important parts and I'd rather not discuss it now. I'm going to be back around five, we can order some dinner and talk over that." Her inner voice punched the air. _Yes! Assertiveness, and for once, he's the one struggling to know what to say, not you. If we're still doing points that deserves at least ten of them. _She smiled at him as sweetly as she could manage and walked to the living room. John stood up and went out.

She was about to leave after John when Sherlock caught her hand and pulled her towards him. She thought he was going to say something but he simply held her at arm's length, taking her in again before he pulled her closer and crushed her lips to his. It took her a moment, but she kissed him back, wrapping her arms around him. He let her go abruptly.

_Okay, if we're still doing points, I think that wins all of them._

"Tonight then. Five. Don't be late, Miss Watson."

It was much less said than it was growled, and, confused as ever, Serena hurried out of the flat.

* * *

So it took me a crazy day of writing but I managed to get this up. It's 2am so I am not even going to attempt to start nine. Thank you again to all my lovely readers, reviewers, favourite-ers, and followers, you all make me very happy! From here on out it's going to get a lot more interesting and probably a little more smutty in places from here on out.

As ever, please review, favourite, or follow if you deem me worthy!


	9. Nine

NINE

Sherlock had been completely useless all day. As soon as he had left his flat he realised it was a mistake. He wanted to be there waiting for Serena when she got back, if the time even managed to pass, and he couldn't think past the thoughts of her. It definitely had not been a mistake to kiss her, that he was sure of. Really it had only been to regain the upper hand in the situation, but it stopped being about that the second their lips met. From that point on it was only about the two of them. He wished he didn't have to complicate things by talking to her tonight, all he really wanted to do when she got in was kiss her, take her to his room and pound her hard in to the bed. It was his sincere hope that he would still be able to do that after they spoke and he told her everything.

It was exactly five when Serena breezed back in to the flat. He'd had a small crisis about where to place himself so that he looked natural, like he might have forgotten that she even existed, not that he ever really could. Eventually he had opted just for his chair. That seemed somewhat normal at least. As she entered the room her face lit up in a bright smile when she saw him, but she passed him and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

_No, she was supposed to talk to me now. Fuck, what was it that I was going to say again?_

So simply deciding to hell with it, Sherlock got up, walked over, and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind her. She easily relaxed back in to his arms, and he pushed her curtain of hair away from her neck and kissed it softly.

She turned in his arms to face him and fixed her brilliant blue eyes on his. She locked her arms around his neck. He could tell she was struggling to decide if she should speak or not, but he didn't want her to. In one fluid movement he gently lifted her up to sit on the counter and leant forward and kissed her much softer than he had that morning, hoping that the gently kiss conveyed all that he had forgotten how to say to her. For a moment he was scared she might try to push him away from her and tell him it had all been a huge mistake, but she made no movement other than to tangle her hand in his dark curls and edge a little closer to him.

He wondered for a moment if he could actually try to be with her without dominating her. She was so sweet, not innocent, not quite, but certainly sheltered. There was always something about his submissive's that he needed to punish out of them, but he couldn't imagine ever really punishing Serena.

_Okay, you have a minute until this gets serious. Decide now. I can't make love to her, I don't know how, so if we go there I'll fuck her, hard, and save the romantics for elsewhere and hope that she wasn't expecting a bed covered in rose petals. Perhaps she can be persuaded in time to be tied up, handcuffed perhaps, blindfolded, all the ones that people experiment with for fun when they're not serious about this. Of course it will be difficult not to control her behaviour but as much as I might want her to be, this girl is not a submissive, nor does she show any interest in being one. She only does as I ask because she's apprehensive of me. All I know is that I need her and I'm not going to force her into submission because I'm worried I can't get off like a normal person._

He gently broke his lips away from hers and she whined softly, keeping her arms around him so he couldn't move too far from her. He pressed his forehead to hers and brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face. Neither made any move to say anything to the other for what seemed like quite a long time.

"I still want to talk this all over with you." she said quietly before she smiled sweetly. "But I actually realised just today that I still haven't seen this whole flat, and I think I should do that before we talk and ruin everything and you can't show me around." He frowned.

"You want a tour of my ridiculously small flat? Now, after having been here three days? After… that?" She nodded. "What is there that you haven't managed to see yet?"

"Your room, of course."

That was it for him. He lifted her from the counter and took her in to his room. It was by far the tidiest room of the flat which he was now thankful for. He laid her on the large bed and locked his lips again with hers, deeper and more passionate this time. In time he would come to think of that kiss in his bedroom as the one which sealed his fate. Up until then he could have walked away from her and still managed to forget her, but there she was completely open to him now, vulnerable, trusting, and it was in that moment that he knew for sure he was in love with her.

He wanted her badly. He stopped the kiss and untangled himself from her arms. First undoing the ribbon at her neck that was the only thing keeping her dress up her worked her out of it, tossing it away on to the floor, leaving her in only lacy, deep blue underwear. He kissed her neck again, down her collarbone, and then over the top of her perfect, ivory breasts. His arms worked under her and unclasped her bra, throwing it the same way as he had her dress. He traced over the top of them with his long index finger. As soon as he dragged his finger over her nipple it hardened and he bent over her and took it into his mouth, and she moaned loudly, dragging her nails down his back. The noise she elicited was beautiful. She pressed her hips up against his groin and he let out a guttural groan, fully erect already. She moaned again as she felt him pressing against her. He moved his mouth off her and flipped them so that she was on top of him.

She moved her hands over his shirt softly, slowly unbuttoning it and pulling it off.

He looked at her over him and looked at how completely perfect this girl was. Not just beauty but something otherworldly, angelic, ethereal about her and her very presence. There would never be a man worthy of her, certainly not him, and yet for some unfathomable reason she seemed to think that he was.

She took a moment to admire his shirtless form before she continued, kissing her way down her chest. He had wondered before if she might be nervous – it was obvious she was intimidated by him – but she seemed comfortable and more at ease with him now than she ever had done before. It probably helped that he was already hard and letting her know exactly what she did to him by simply being around him.

Her hands worked the buckle of his belt and she pulled it out of the loops. She pulled his pants down and off him followed by his boxers. Not wanting to be naked while she even had the barest amount of clothing on, Sherlock hooked his thumb into her panties and pulled them off swiftly. The pair took a moment to take each other in fully before she ran her hands down his arms and linked them with his hands. He sat up and kissed her, and this time it was her who quickly broke away and pulled him so he was sat on the edge of the bed, which she was no longer on. She knelt in front of him, blue eyes wide, not moving, silently asking his permission before she did anything.

"Yes, sweetheart, of course." he encouraged her, voice audibly lower and huskier than it usually was. He could feel her soft blonde hair dragging over his thigh as she kissed her way up it. He could feel himself throbbing in anticipation of her.

"It's very lucky I have no gag reflex. You're bigger than I imagined you would be Mr Holmes." His cock twitched when she called him that again. "And I promise you, in the dreams I was quite generous when I imagined how big you were." She smiled up at him wickedly, innocent blue eyes suddenly darkened with lust and want.

"There were dreams?" he asked, sounding somewhat shocked, and she nodded, cheek grazing over his thigh as she did. "What happened in them?"

"Several things, which I hope over the course of this evening you might allow me to demonstrate, one of which I will start as soon as you stop talking." He smirked at her, looking her in the eyes, careful not to say anything or even make a movement with his lips. She said nothing else either but broke their eye contact.

She drew her tongue up his shaft excruciatingly slowly and he groaned loudly. Her mouth was perfect height to take him in to it, slowly at first, taking only the head and sucking gently on it. He watched her closely and unblinkingly as she lowered her head further down his erection until she had taken all of him in her mouth. She sucked harder on him, swirling her tongue around his length. He was thrusting himself into her mouth now, one hand clenched in her hair, the other gripping the sheets of the bed. She hummed silently, and he shuddered and groaned at the vibration. He pumped harder in and out of her mouth, her lips visibly redder and fuller from the friction. He stopped moving and his breath became jagged, freezing as he neared his release, and she cupped his balls, massaging them softly. He cried out, animalistic, as the orgasm tore through him and his seed poured in to the back of her throat.

She sucked softly on the head again before she released him from her mouth and swallowed. He stayed sat on the bed, catching his breath before he pulled her up gently so that she was sat on his lap. She stroked one hand through his dark hair, letting him fully recover and ground himself again as her came down form the intense pleasure. He pulled his fingers gently through her long blonde hair.

"We have to talk before we continue." Serena said quietly, and he sighed, annoyed at her for breaking the spell of the tranquil moment, and also for not just letting him go on. Couldn't they talk later? "No, it's good talking, I promise. And this will definitely happen. Tonight."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to complain about that. So let's say you get to talk for five minutes, at the most, and then we go back to having fun."

"I know you're a Dominant, Sherlock."

It felt like his entire, blissful little world of Serena had come crashing down in just five words. It was no longer apart from that other world of his, now the two had collided. Serena, much as he had wanted her that way before was supposed to be separate and sweetly oblivious to that. He had told himself he wouldn't involve her, and she chose to bring it up now, like this? He had done an excellent job since they entered his bedroom of not thinking on it, focussing only on her, and it would have worked. He could have just been with her normally until that point, because talking about it then was like offering a starving lion an antelope and expecting it not to turn it in to a meal.

"Sherlock look at me." she told him softly and he did. She kissed his jaw softly. "If you're worried about what I think, don't be. I figured it out pretty much when I left your flat this morning so I've had time to process it and decide what I was going to do. I was going to say something as soon as I got in but I got a little caught up in this, and really I was hesitant to interrupt anyway, but I don't want you to have to compromise here, either me or that, because I know that's not how it works. I know you can't just decide to stop. What I'm slowly trying to say is that if you want me like that then you can have me that way. And before you say it's not just about what you want, I know. I want to. I like when you tell me what to do anyway, I mean, it was a bit confusing before I realised but it felt normal with you. I know I won't be a proper submissive, and I'm making it clear now that there's a lot I will not be comfortable with" He sat quietly for a moment trying to process what she was saying. "Say something, please."

"You really are perfect." She beamed, and he kissed her roughly before she had time to say anything else to him, which was probably for the best.

He worked her back on to the bed and with a quick and oddly chaste kiss he moved off her quickly retrieving the blue tie he had worn the other night. He saw her eyes when she saw it, and he swore they sparkled. She didn't look frightened in the least, and actually, she looked quite pleased at the prospect of what they were about to do. He placed her hands together and bound them to one of the bars of the headboard. He found two more ties after a moment and used them to fasten her ankles to the end of the bed. This was it would still be him with the control but she would not feel like she was being pushed too far.

"They will come undone if you pull hard enough, so if you have to get free then you'll be able to do so. I won't push you any further than this your first time and until we sort out what you're comfortable with." She nodded in understanding. "You need a safe word anyway, just in case I do go too far, and it's best to pick one now that we can use again in future."

"Kalopsia." she told him after a few moments of thought. He repeated it and she nodded.

He kissed her deeply, and it was unhurried and gentle at first. He could tell she felt a little odd not being able to put her arms around him, but soon got used to it. The kiss became quickly deeper and filled with a sense of urgency. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He moved away from her lips and traced over them softly with his thumb before abandoning then to concentrate on other areas of her body. He kissed over her breasts like he had done before and rolled her nipples between his fingertips, feeling them quickly harden again as she let out a soft moan. He moved further down, kissing over her pale, flat stomach, her hips, and then moving his lips down to the bottom of her thighs her kissed his way up them as she had done to him earlier. She wasn't straining to watch him, just lying back, moaning and writhing in pleasure.

He traced one finger along her wet pink opening which caused her moans to increase in volume. After a moment he moved his finger along to her clit, rubbing circles around and over it, and her previously wordless moans became soft cries of his name. Pleased, and deciding to reward her for being so receptive he took one of his long fingers and pressed it into her, quickly adding another to her tight, wet sheath, dragging them slowly out before he plunged them back into her. His name mixed with loud cries of 'Oh God!' the closer to orgasm she became, and almost reluctantly he pulled his fingers out of her, leaving her breathless and wanting more, needing release, with his own hard length pressed against her stomach as he kissed her again gently on her already bruised lips.

"Please Sherlock…" she begged quietly, unable to muster up a louder tone. He quickly reached in to the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a condom, opening it and sliding it on to his erection. Her eyes suddenly opened to look at him, deep blue eyes bearing into his own as he positioned himself at her slick entrance.

Lifting her hips off the bed slightly, he looked at her again and kissed her deeply as he plunged in to her, and she cried out. He buried his length deep inside her, pausing a second before he began thrusting hard in and out of her, gripping her hips tightly.

Her hips bucked up under him in time with his pounding in and out of her.

He used one of his hands to massage her breast in time with his movements and she started to moan his name again. She very suddenly cried out for him to go harder, a request which he was only too willing to oblige with.

"Sherlock – fuck! I'm so close…" He considered ordering her to hold it, but there was no way he would last much longer, so he refrained. He would save playing with how long she could hold her orgasm for another time. Now he just wanted her, all of her, and her release would make her his completely. His Serena, his beautiful blonde goddess who he was so undeserving of.

"Come for me, sweetheart." He bit down into her collar bone and she screamed in pure bliss as spasms shot through her groin and her sheath tightened and contracted even more around him. As soon as he felt her go over the edge he knew he would never last, and pounded into her only once more before he went over after her, hot pleasure coursing through his body. The intensity blinded him for a moment, and he lay over her for a moment, spent, before he regained his senses. He took only a moment to untie her before he lay back with her, arms circling her waist, feeling completely at peace as she nuzzled into his neck, neither yet able to speak.


	10. Ten

TEN

It was about two in the morning, and Serena was no longer tired. She wasn't sure how or why she was so awake – after the first time there had been another, and another, then a little experimenting with him with his tongue – fuck that man could do things with his tongue, and those fingers… Serena was half tempted to walk back in to his room and wake him up for another round. She was sure if anyone had it in them it would be him, but she resolved just to wait until the morning. He had promised that they could continue their little trysts in the shower and she was already looking forward to it.

Serena was far from a virgin, that ship had sailed long ago, in all honestly a long time before she was ready and not with anyone who meant anything to her, or whose name she could barely remember. She was pretty sure it began with 'L' but it might have been 'H' or 'R'.

Instead of her usual late night glass of water, Serena instead made herself a tea, and sat on the counter the way she had the first morning she spent here. She had the light on; she was pretty sure Sherlock wouldn't wake from the deep sleep she had left him in. She noticed, slightly annoyed at herself that she was humming under her breath, and realised, even more annoyed that it was a Disney song. It was a terrible habit to sing Disney songs after sex, but try as she might it wasn't something she found herself able to help. Today's choice was apparently 'When Will My Life Begin' from Tangled which she made a mental note to suggest to Sherlock that they should watch together. She was still trying to persuade him on Gone With the Wind, although if the sex kept up then she doubted he would have much of a problem with watching either, or in fact a string of other films that she liked that he certainly would not.

_Well, hopefully when I'm still singing this fucking song in the morning he'll just find it endearing like the insane jumping on the bed thing earlier. _She smiled softly at the memory and wondered if that was where things had begun to go right. Everything good had followed that, the declaration of love that she wasn't supposed to hear, the kiss that morning, the subsequent kiss that evening. The sex. Mostly the sex, actually.

She really didn't know how she had missed that he was a dominant before she left his flat. He obviously took great pains to hide it from other people, including the pretence that he simply wasn't interested in anyone. It must be easier to do that than suffer through friends trying to set him up with women who he would never be interested in. Lord knew why he was interested in her, she was far from a submissive, although she supposed she was often quite obedient around him anyway. He had admitted to her that evening that he was pushing her, teasing her, seeing how far she would go and exactly how easy it would have been to coax her into submission. He had apparently realised pretty quickly that this was the wrong way to go about things with her, although he had still enjoyed doing it. And then Mycroft had come over and almost ruined everything by saying she was too good for him. Which she was not. She might be 'vain' but she was not so egotistical that she thought herself better than anyone else, apart from perhaps Mycroft himself because he was clearly a complete arse. She was going to have to subtly work on improving Sherlock's self-worth. John had told her about the drug taking before and she was sure the two were linked, and she really didn't want to have to deal with another addict in her life right now. Her mother took enough work.

The phone which she had left on the kitchen table when she had come in earlier started chiming the first few bars of Say Something by A Great Big World and she frowned. Unless she had read the close seriously wrong it was about five hours too late to call anyone and it not to be an emergency. It wasn't a number she recognised, but she answered anyway.

"Serena, it's Greg. I'm so glad I managed to catch you." He sounded like he was trying to sound casual, but his voice was strained, and she paled instantly at his tone. Why he was calling her could not be a good thing. Nobody calls with good news at two in the morning, and they do not call someone they have met twice with good news. As he spoke she actually poked her head around Sherlock's door just to check he was still there, and breathing. He was, and even though she had known it, this relieved her a little.

"Greg, what happened? Is it John? Have you tried calling Mary?"

"No, Serena, it's not John or Mary. It's this kid we arrested, Serena. This girl, she said she was your sister and gave me your number. She refused to give me anyone else's name, not even her own." Any little colour left in her cheeks quickly vanished.

"Her name is Marilyn Watson-Moore. Something will probably come up in your system if you put her name in. Oh God, what the fuck has she done now?" Serena was already putting him on speaker phone and rushing in to her own room to get dressed, knowing that she would have to go down to the station and do something – anything – that needed to be done. There went her plans for delicious morning shower sex with Sherlock. She almost felt worse about that than the fact they had her little sixteen year old sister down locked in a cell. Almost, but not quite, and only almost because it had happened so many times before. Marilyn had probably only given them her name because she expected her to be in Edinburgh with Harry. She had no idea why Marilyn would be in London; she and Carlie lived in Cardiff now so they could be around Carlie's family and as far away from Serena and Harry as they could get. Serena could already feel a headache coming on from the stress she was feeling. Damn Marilyn, of course this would happen on the one night she was actually happy to ruin it all, wouldn't it?

She managed to find, among the many dresses she had brought, a pair of black jeans and a t-shirt. It had the face of the tenth Doctor on it and it was the only one she owned besides her House Lannister Game of Thrones one and one with the Batman logo on it. She made a mental note to invest in some less nerdy T Shirts. Coupled with the ugly glasses she would have to wear in case there was paperwork, she looked ridiculous.

"We've got her here on multiple charges. Trespassing, breaking and entering, arson, possession of illegal recreational drugs, and underage drinking covers most of it, I think.

"I'll be down in half an hour. Once I figure out exactly how to get there. Shit, how much is bail going to be?" It came as an afterthought as she ran her hands exasperatedly through her hair, sighing loudly.

"More than you can afford. Come down anyway, it'll be better if you're here."

"Yeah, okay Greg. I'll be there as soon as I can. You probably shouldn't tell her I'm on my way; she's not exactly fond of me. It won't make her anymore cooperative."

She put the phone down without saying goodbye and had the urge to just fall back on to the bed and sob until she fell asleep. She wanted to be undressed, back with Sherlock, and never have woken up. She didn't want to be obligated to go and bail her sister out with money she didn't have.

She heard another phone buzzing in the kitchen, and frowning she went in. It was Sherlock's, and on the other end it was his brother. She thought for a moment about letting it go to voicemail, after all she had no real right to answer his phone, but it was two in the morning, and she was sure if something bad was happening that even if it was his prick of an older brother delivering the news that Sherlock would want to know. She was aware of the time passing, but as far as she was concerned Marilyn could wait as long as Serena saw fit. It was her fault that she was in the mess in the first place, and if Serena was going to have to go and help her out then it could at the very least be on her terms.

"Hello Mycroft. Your brother's asleep at the moment. Is it urgent?"

"Ah, Serena, of course. No, not urgent at all, I had planned on simply leaving a message for him to pick up in the morning. Unless you wanted to wake him now and deliver it, but that would involve entering his room which I'm sure you'd rather not do." She understood very clearly why Sherlock had such an intense dislike of this man; she herself had met him once and she hated him already. How dare he think Sherlock wasn't good enough for her?

"Actually, I was planning on returning to his room." Silence. Dead silence, and it made her inexplicably happy. "But unfortunately something has come up and I have to leave now, so yes, perhaps you should leave a message and I'll write it on the note." Mycroft tsk-ed.

"Leaving in the dead of night? Sherlock will be disappointed."

"My little sister's in trouble. She wound up in jail, Greg called me from the station I think and told me to get down there." There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Gregory Lestrade?"

"Yeah, as far as I know. Sherlock calls him Lestrade, so that does make sense. I'm not entirely sure though, I've met the guy, like, twice, and no-one ever called him Gregory to me before, but that seems to make sense. Do you know him?" she asked curiously. Of course he did, or he wouldn't have asked. _Why do these Holmes men have a way of making everyone too nervous to make any sense at all? At least I'm over it with Sherlock, I can only hope I recover as quickly with Mycroft, not that I really desire the pleasure of meeting him again after what happened before._

"And how are you planning to get to the station exactly?" he asked her. _Well damn, he would ask me about the one flaw in my plan._

"No idea." she said honestly and quickly. She was okay making Marilyn wait, but not this long.

"Well, perhaps you would allow me to accompany you. Perhaps even provide you with any money you might need for bail." She choked on air.

"I need a lift there and would be happy to accept one since you are up and awake and you called and bothered me. I don't, however, take money from the brothers of the men I sleep with, and will therefore be taking care, or not as the case may in fact be, of Marilyn's bail by myself." She heard him sigh.

"I'll be there in ten minutes. Please, be outside and waiting and unless you want me to have an impromptu change of heart about taking you, leave my brother asleep and don't bring him with you." She nodded, and realised rather stupidly that he couldn't hear her through the phone.

"Please don't be late." He scoffed and put the phone down. It seemed rather rude, but she had done almost the same thing to Lestrade not ten minutes earlier, so she supposed it was a very small form of karmic retribution. She put her phone in a small bag and Sherlock's back on the kitchen table. She spent the next five minutes looking for paper and a pen to write a note to him. He had literally everything else in his flat, but apparently these weren't important enough to keep an abundance of.

Ring me as soon as you get up. Shit, do you even have my number? Well, if not, I've written it down. I promise, I didn't want to leave, but it was a family emergency. I'll explain when you ring. I'll have my phone with me.

Sorry we had to skip the shower sex.

-S

She went outside hurridly without looking in on him again. She waited on the street for only about a minute and a half before a flash looking car drove along and pulled up beside her. It really could only be Mycroft. He rolled down the window and she saw he was seated in the back. _Where can I get a chauffeur who drives me around at ridiculous times at night? How do you even get that rich?_

"Join the government, dear, it's well paid." She wondered for a moment if she had spoken aloud. "My brother is not the only one who can make deductions." She shrugged and without another word she climbed in to the car in the seat beside him.

"You might have at least tried to cover up the fact that not two hours ago you were having sex with my little brother." She blushed lightly. This was not a conversation she wanted to have with Sherlock's rather intimidating older brother. "Try and do something about your hair, dear, our police force might often need the help of your new boyfriend but even they will be able to deduce that." _Not my boyfriend._ She silently added, but Mycroft did not seem like the kind of person she wanted to engage with in an argument at past two in the morning when she was exhausted and on the brink of being emotional. She only really realised once her mind stopped racing, but this would be the first time in two years that she had spoken to her little sister, the first time in four years that she had seen her. She wondered if she still had her black hair short or if she had grown it out.

She simply nodded and used the rear-view mirror (and upon seeing her reflection she knew he was right, her entire appearance screamed JBF) to run her fingers painfully through her hair and smooth it down. It looked a little neater and more acceptable than it had done before at least. She turned to Mycroft who gave her a nod and she settled back in to her seat and stared out of the window. _Just think about something else for a while._

They arrived far too soon, and, to his credit, Mycroft did actually look worried about her. She shook her head and held her hand up to him, stopping him from saying anything.

"I've not seen her for a while. She'll be angry that I'm here and I just… I'm too tired to deal with her shit even though I have to." _I wish Sherlock was here instead of you because even though he'd be crap at it at least he'd try to say something supportive. He'd link his arm with mine and it would all be way better. Fuck you for not letting me bring him._

"Well, if you don't want to go in I can take you home again, though I suggest you should at least try. She's younger than you, correct?" Serena nodded, a little miserably. "In which case she needs your help, obviously, and you seem far too nice to simply abandon her to whatever might happen." _Damn him for being right. _"As ridiculous as it might seem from how our relationship is now, I did have to bail my brother out a few times in his rebellious youthful days, and a few times more recently actually." At this she had to smile. No matter who they were, in her experience, older siblings always found some common ground in how hopeless their younger siblings were and how much they would love them regardless of what they did, unconditionally, even during the times when their younger siblings really didn't love them back, although she suspected Mycroft might be hesitant to admit his love for his brother.

She got out of the car and Mycroft led her inside, opening various doors for her until they reached an area with seats. Greg was sat on one of them, rubbing his temples. He looked as tired and exasperated as Serena did. He must have been speaking to Marilyn.

"Gregory." Mycroft said. Serena frowned and looked at him. His tone was slightly less cold than it usually was, and she detected the barest of smiles playing on the corners of his lips and realised very suddenly why he had offered to help her, and why he didn't want Sherlock to go along with them. Obviously he had wanted to see Greg. He must like him, or be seeing him, or something. It was quite sweet, although she could hardly imagine Mycroft being in a relationship. Greg smiled very brightly when he saw him, and to Serena it seemed to echo the smile she wore every time the other Holmes brother acknowledged her presence.

"Mycroft." He sounded like he was doing his best to be casual even though he was obviously elated at the surprise appearance of his… Mycroft. She didn't know what else to label him as, so for now he could just be Greg's Mycroft and she'd re-evaluate that later if she had to. "Serena, your sister is… Very different to you. There's no similarity there at all."

"No, she's Carlie's daughter, and I'm Harry's. They both wanted to have a child who was related by blood to them so they just had two rounds of IVF and here we both are." That was part of the reason Marilyn lived with Carlie. "Now, if you two wouldn't mind catching up later, I think you should probably take me to see my little sister." Greg nodded, and began to walk, and she followed him down the corridor, apprehensive about what she would be met with.


	11. Eleven

ELEVEN

Sherlock woke the next morning to a cold and empty bed, and for a moment he wondered if the previous night might have just been a very intense, detailed dream. No, surely it would be too cruel to rob him of that now.

He made his way out to the kitchen, and it was only then that he realise that no, it really hadn't been a figment of his imagination. Her note, scribbled quickly, and by the looks of it quite a few hours ago was lying on the table by his phone, and with no hesitation at all he picked it up and dialled the number she had left for him. There was a delay before she picked up, and he panicked for a moment, wondering what could have possibly happened to her to cause her to leave so quickly.

"Sherlock?" Her voice on the other end of the phone was uncertain and strained and he walked to sit down in his chair as she spoke softly and slowly. He could hear a woman's voice in the background and two male ones, one of which sounded suspiciously like his brother. He frowned.

"Yes, sweetheart. Where are you?"

"Police station. With Mycroft, Greg, and my idiot of a little sister who managed to get herself arrested and is currently REFUSING TO COOPERATE WITH THE POLICE." He held the phone away from his ear as she started screaming; obviously her sister was in earshot and she wanted her to hear how angry she was. He frowned; he would much rather have her back in bed with him than yelling at him down a phone.

"Do you want me to come down there?"

"Yeah, I really do. Because I am about to strangle all three of them and I think I might at least be slightly less inclined towards doing so if you're here." He heard raised voices again, and when Serena spoke again she was even more agitated. "And if your brother says the phrase 'But dear, I am the British Government' to me one more fucking time I am going to castrate him." He had to stifle a chuckle. _This is not the right time to be laughing; poor girl is obviously incredibly stressed out. I'll have to bring her home soon and see if I can relieve some of that tension that's undoubtedly building up._

"I'll be there as soon as possible. Why on earth is Mycroft there anyway?" She sighed on the other end of the phone and he smiled to himself.

"I had no way of getting here last night after Greg called me, and Mycroft phoned you so I picked it up in case it was an emergency and apparently it wasn't and he offered to give me a lift here and I accepted. Just get down here please."

"I'll see you in a few minutes." He put the phone down and sighed as he went to get dressed. He frowned to himself as he got ready. _Well, there go my plans for a lovely morning in bed with her. I'll just have to make up for lost time with her later._

He arrived at the police station quickly, and it didn't take long to locate the group of four. He walked slowly along, sizing up the young girl who must be Serena's sister. There really was no physical resemblance, and he realised that each of them must be a blood relation of one of their mothers, but of course not both. He thought that Serena must be Harry's daughter because blonde hair ran on their side of the family, and that the girl stood here but be Carlie's, because she had black hair.

The girl, who was stood there with a hand on her hip, was tiny, almost a foot shorter than Serena was. Her black hair was cut wavy and short to just past her chin and she had an electric blue streak down either side. Her eyes were strikingly green. She, despite having spent the night in a police station, looked good. She was grinning mischievously, and he thought that she looked like a pixie where Serena was decidedly more elven and graceful. The one similarity he could see though was the way her eyes lit up when she was talking at full speed the way Serena did. He couldn't remember if Serena had mentioned her name, but if she had it was escaping him.

Serena looked comparatively exhausted. He wanted to pick her up and carry her out and take her home where none of this could bother her anymore, but he hoped that his being here might help somewhat if that didn't prove to be possible. She smiled though when she saw him and walked over. She had her arms wrapped around herself, and it was instinctive that he pulled off his coat and handed it to her. She smiled again, gratefully taking the coat from him and putting it on. He swept her hair out from under it. He wanted very much to kiss her but she looked so tired and now wouldn't have been a particularly good time, he imagined. He, instead, took her hand and took her back over to the group of the three others, still not saying anything to her. He realised that she wouldn't want to do much more talking, she seemed half asleep anyway. It seemed odd to him that she hadn't just called John to come and deal with this for her, but since he and her sister weren't really related she was probably just being considerate of him needing sleep, which he supposed would be in short supply once the baby arrived. Besides, on a subconscious level Serena had probably wanted to take care of her little sister, and this did give her the perfect excuse to talk to her again since they had been out of contact for so long.

"Marilyn, it would be much easier for you just to talk to us." Lestrade was saying exasperatedly, and Mycroft was nodding.

"I already told you everything I am legally required to. If you want to know more then I suggest that you get my darling sister to find me a lawyer." Her voice was much colder than Serena's was. Serena herself didn't even look bothered by her; she just looked tired and emotionally exhausted. He wanted to get her home soon for worry that she might faint.

"Greg, there's no use. She's obviously not going to tell you anything and you can't keep her here." Serena said. Her voice was very quiet, and immediately, as she had hated Mycroft when she met him, he hated Marilyn. Lestrade sighed in defeat and held his hands up, and Marilyn smirked, looking triumphant. "Sherlock, I'm sorry, I think I'm going to have to bring her back to yours until I figure out what the hell to do with her. I've half a mind to march you back to Cardiff myself, but I think I'll just call Carlie and have her come here."

"She won't come, Serena. She kicked me out months ago." Marilyn replied with an uncaring shrug. "I'll just stay with a friend or something until I'm done with the stupid community service thing they're making me do and then be on my way. No need for you to go out of your way to give me a bed, Serena. I can more than take care of myself."

"You are sixteen years old, and much as I might want to just leave you here, it wouldn't be fair on you, and I'd never forgive myself, so you can come with me and stop being a brat."

The younger girl looked down at the floor sulkily, but she didn't complain. Serena had learnt to use the same 'don't fuck with me' tone as her uncle did, and it sounded even more severe than John's did coupled with the fact she was exhausted and had no energy left to pour into anything besides her anger. Lestrade led Marilyn away quietly to go and get her things and Serena went to lean against the wall, sighing heavily. It was Mycroft who made the first move, walking and standing beside her and placing one hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and smiled weakly.

"You know I'm pretty sure what you and Greg just did for me wasn't legal. I don't think the British Government is supposed to use his influence to save idiotic children who don't even have the sense to drink inside if they will insist on doing so."

"Not all idiotic children, dear, just your sister. The others she was with are all still sat happily in their cells, and I intend for them to remain there and not help them. I'm just glad I could help you out." Serena fixed her eyes on him and quirked one eyebrow. The blue seemed to have dulled with her exhaustion, but they were still beautiful of course. She smiled softly at Mycroft and shook her head.

"We both know you didn't come here to earn points with me, Mycroft." Her tone was sly and mocking, but Mycroft didn't look annoyed.

"You've chosen a good one here, brother." Mycroft said, turning to Sherlock, and Serena laughed softly to herself. Sherlock frowned. Clearly he was missing something. "She was able to deduce something before even you were. You're getting negligent when it comes to noticing the most obvious of things that have been going on for a long time." Serena looked at Mycroft who silently shook his head. She rolled her eyes and fixed them on Sherlock, smiling too brightly for someone who was as tired as she was.

"I'll tell you later." she mouthed silently to him. He smirked slightly and nodded.

Lestrade and Marilyn came back not too long after they had left. Marilyn was now carrying a large blue guitar case with stickers all over the front of it, and her name in green paint on the back of it. She had a large black rucksack with badges pinned all over it. She walked past them towards the exit and Sherlock and Serena followed her out.

"Please tell me that is not all your stuff, Marilyn." Serena said, shaking her head once they were outside again, waiting for a cab to arrive. Mycroft was waiting on his personal driver but had opted to wait inside.

"Well how much else do you expect me to carry?" she sounded angrier than she had done before when she replied to her. She put her backpack on the ground but kept the guitar case in her hand. "Carlie kicked me out seven fucking months ago and I haven't stayed in the same place for more than two weeks. I had to dump half my stuff when I got to Scotland."

"You were in Scotland?" Serena paled visibly. "Why didn't you come to me and Harry? We would have taken you in. We're your family."

"No you are not." she hissed back at Serena, glaring. "You're not related to me, and neither of you ever gave a shit about me before I decided to go and live with Carlie instead of you and your alcoholic mother." Serena clenched her fist and locked her eyes on her.

"At least Harry never beat me."

Serena's mouth opened in shock at what she had just said. Marilyn froze and stared straight at her. She looked like she was about to throw up. She wrapped her one free arm around her torso and dropped her gaze from Serena's. The blonde looked at her, biting down hard on her lip until she drew blood. She ran one hand backwards through her hair and pressed her eyes shut for ten seconds exactly before she opened them again. Slowly she took two steps towards her sister and took the guitar out of her hand. Marilyn let it go, clearly in some kind of state of shock, not understanding what was going on around her. Serena quickly wrapped her arms around the other girl, and after a moment of stiffness Marilyn did the same back to her. Serena soothingly ran one hand through her hair, mumbling countless apologies. The other girl did not cry, just stayed embracing her.

And Sherlock just watched the two of them and thanked God that, tense as it may be, he and his brother's relationship was far less complicated than theirs was.

The pair eventually let go of each other and Serena smiled fondly at the younger girl who looked up at her blankly. Neither said anything to each other then, nor did they in the taxi home. Apart from a few short glances at him, Serena acted like Sherlock wasn't there, and while of course he minded, he also somewhat understood. The pair hadn't seen each other in so long; it made sense that now she was here Serena's one and only focus would have to be her little sister. _Just another advantage of not caring. Well, previously not having cared._

Marilyn followed Serena up in to the flat once they arrived. Serena took her in to her room and shut the door behind them. Sherlock sighed and went in to his own room, and just sat on the end of his bed. For the first time in days he was craving a case to keep his mind occupied. He texted Lestrade and asked to be alerted when one came up. There was a knock on his door before it opened and Serena walked in.

"She's asleep in my room. She hasn't had a proper place to sleep in two and a half weeks. Can she stay here a while? Until I work out what to do?" Her voice was small, and she honestly looked like she was about to break down in tears. He nodded and she breathed a soft sigh of relief and went to leave his room.

"Serena." he said, and she turned around. He beckoned for her to go over to him and she walked over and sat beside him on the bed. "Tell me."

"I can't Sherlock. None of it happened to me, well, not until I realised what was going on. It's not worth thinking about now. It was a long time ago, and honestly, I know you'd rather pretend that I don't have emotional baggage. You don't have to talk to me about this".

"Serena, I want you to talk to me. I want to know, please. I'm not good with all this emotional stuff, obviously, but I want you to be honest with me. If and when you can."

"It's not a case of me not being able to tell you, it's of you not being able to take it. Do you know what you said to me as you were falling asleep yesterday? You called me a goddess, and I didn't even think about it until now. And I know you don't realise how you were looking at me outside the police station but when I said that to Marilyn and you realised that I wasn't perfect, I could see it. I could see that perfect image you have of me for whatever reason fade from your eyes, and it was awful. It was your realisation that I'm spiteful enough that I said something like that, and I'm screwed up because it happened. Because I watched as one of my mother's beat my little sister, and then when I saw it again I tried to stop it and she turned on me too. And then when my mother finally realised she was doing it to us too, despite everything she had done, Marilyn went with her. And I know you won't ever think of me as a goddess again, because the delusion's gone. Kalopsia."

"You're safe wording me?" She shook her head.

"Do you know what it means?" He remained silent. "It means the delusion that something is more beautiful and perfect than it actually is. I picked it because I read it yesterday, God knows where and I didn't realise how horribly appropriate it was. The kalopsia you once had for me is gone now, because you suddenly realised I'm human. I'm not some angel sent down to be the effervescent and perfect presence in your life. Until a couple of years ago my life was awful, I'm not unsullied by bad things. I haven't avoided them, and I'm probably going to run in to a lot more of them over the course of my life. And before this –we – can be anything at all, you have to accept that. That is provided of course, that you still want me." Neither said anything for a long moment. "I need coffee if I'm going to stay awake." she said, suddenly breaking the silence. She went to get up but he caught her hand, not pulling her at all, but gently letting her know not to leave.

"None of that matters to me. Perhaps it took me until this morning to understand what exactly, but I was never under the illusion that you had led a sheltered life, away from anything bad. It doesn't change that I want you, and it's ridiculous to think that it would. I'm not going to make some premature declaration of love to you to prove that, but I hope you know it's true."

She smiled, and it was her bright, signature smile that he was so fond of. He kissed her softly and very briefly before he stood up and took her hand, pulling her up gently after him. She was still smiling. Her eyes looked brighter than they had before, as though the life had been poured back in to them through his words.

"Let's get you your coffee now sweetheart. I know it's been a long night."


	12. Twelve

TWELVE

Everything felt a lot better once Serena no longer felt like she was going to keel over from exhaustion. It only took three cups of coffee before she had somewhat regained her senses and was able to function normally. It had been awkward at first sitting with Sherlock on her own, knowing he was now one of less than five people who knew about what had happened to her growing up, but somehow he had actually managed to make her feel better, and got her talking about books as soon as she was more awake, and thinking about that while sitting there holding his hand made her inexplicably happy and she managed somehow to forget all the event of the morning. It had actually felt good to unload all her baggage on someone. She hadn't realised how long she had been bottling it all up for until she suddenly wasn't anymore and the immense sense of relief washed over her, and the weight was lifted from her shoulders. It was no longer a case of never allowing herself to think about it. Sherlock had made it very clear that she was to talk to him if she needed to. She was fine with this, especially if it prevented emotional outbursts like she'd had that morning.

"I don't understand how you can't have read Dracula. You have to, it's my third favourite book of all time." she said, once again smiling brightly. She had only left conversation to take a shower and creep into her dark room past Marilyn, still asleep on her bed and grab something to change in to. She wouldn't have bothered but he was teasing her about her rather odd choice in clothing and she had wanted to look a little more put together and so she put a simple black tunic dress over blue leggings.

"Only third? Which two are in first and second then?" he asked her. He was still holding her hand, running his thumb back and forth over the back of it. It was a small gesture, and no doubt an unconscious one, but it comforted her all the same.

"Well, second is The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and first is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier."

It was then that she heard music blaring from her room very suddenly and sighed softly, realising that Marilyn must be up. It was a pure miracle that she had been able to come home, but a mixture of luck and Mycroft, who Serena was reluctantly beginning to admit wasn't as bad as she had originally thought he was, had helped. She knew Mycroft had just wanted to impress Greg with how caring he was – according to Greg they'd argued a few days ago and not seen each other since and Mycroft was trying to make it up to him, and yes, as she had suspected they were secretly together, but she was now under strict instructions not to tell Sherlock – but she was grateful nonetheless. Marilyn was going to be made to do some form of community service and that was it. She was lucky not to be going to prison with all the things she had originally been being held for. Greg said he already had an idea about what she could do, but he'd have to clear it with a superior first. She wondered if that meant someone on the police force or just Mycroft. Perhaps it was both.

Her younger sister emerged about ten minutes later, leaving the music on and singing softly to herself. Serena and Sherlock dropped each other's hands. She was dressed in some obscure band shirt and black jeans. She wore heavy makeup, but she was smiling to herself.

_She looks so good like that. She actually looks happy now. Maybe leaving Carlie wasn't such a bad thing for her after all. I can't imagine she would ever have been allowed to dress like this or put streaks in her hair or anything else while she was there. And she looks good and there's light in her eyes. That wasn't there when she left with Carlie._

Serena remembered the day well. The divorce had been finalised, and custody decided upon and as she watched Marilyn being driven away in the back seat of Carlie's red Mini she knew she was losing her little sister to the abusive woman she used to call her mother, who had driven her real mother to drink so she could block some of it out. To Harry's credit as soon as she figured out that it wasn't just her, that Carlie was beating her children too, she had known it was time to get out. What she didn't account for was that Marilyn would say she was going with Carlie, because Carlie was her real mother and Harry was not. Harry had been all set to bring up the abusiveness in court during the divorce so she could keep Marilyn with her anyway, but it had backfired. Carlie had told her in no uncertain terms that if she did that then she would call her out on her dependence on alcohol. Then neither of them could keep their children and they would both be sent away. So Harry had kept quiet, and Marilyn had been able to leave with Carlie without anyone thinking anything of it. Somehow it was made worse by the fact that she wanted to go.

Without saying a word Marilyn walked past the two of them and put the kettle on. She sat on the counter the way Serena had done a couple of times and she kept singing softly to herself. Serena recognised it as the theme song to Orange is the New Black and smiled to herself. That seemed a little too ironic for her taste but Marilyn seemed to bask in it. While her back was turned his phone started ringing and Sherlock got up and gave Serena a quick kiss on the top of her head and went in to his room to answer it.

For the first time since she had seen her again the night before, Serena was alone with her little sister.

"Do you like that show?" she asked her, wincing at how awful the question sounded. There were so many more important things she needed to ask her, so many other things she could have said, but she had started out with that and she was going to have to stick with it. Marilyn, regardless, was nodding slowly.

"Yeah, a friend I was staying with made me watch it with her. I have to say, even with the limited time I had there, prison did not seem like that. No-one had a throat tattoo." Marilyn said, grinning. Serena laughed softly.

"That's seriously disappointing. No crazy Russian cook with a bad dye job?" she said, feigning disappointment. Marilyn laughed and shook her head.

"I missed you, Serena. I missed having my big sister around for the last few years. I wanted to go to you and Harry but I couldn't. By the time Carlie kicked me out you wouldn't have wanted me there. The state I was in made what Harry used to do look like nothing. But I swear, I'm clean now. No more drink, no more drugs. I just hang around with people who don't feel the same way about that stuff."

"Harry will take you back into her home in a heartbeat. She stopped drinking, and she's got a really nice girlfriend at the moment. I was actually able to move out because Teresa wanted to move in with her. And come down here without worrying what was going to happen to her. You should meet her. She's so pretty and sweet. And she treats me like her daughter, and she'd love you too."

"I don't know if I want to go back to living with Harry, but I do want to get back in touch with her. She's my mother after all, more so than Carlie ever was. She'd never have let me get that bad. I mean fuck, I was injecting myself with heroin at fourteen. Who the fuck gets that messed up? And what's worse is she didn't even touch me after we left you two. She never raised her hand, didn't use the belt like she did on the two of us, nothing. Carlie just pretended I didn't exist, until she worked everything out. I came home one day, three in the morning, high as a fucking kite and she was sat on the stairs with a suitcase of my crap telling me to get out of her house and never come back. I begged her to let me stay, but she didn't care. It was only when I met Violet that I decided to stop."

"Girlfriend or just a friend?"

"At first she was just a friend. I got clean because she said she was in love with me, but that she didn't want to be. She didn't want to love someone like that. And I said I loved her back and that I would stop."

"When did you realise that you liked girls?"

"Not that long after I left. I mean I thought that was the social norm, that you could like anyone you wanted. I never realised other people had a problem with it. I used to only like girls but I've met guys who I like too. And Violet and I are still in touch but when I left Scotland there didn't seem to be much sense in staying together. I kind of miss her though."

"Wow. You were in your first serious relationship before I was." Marilyn laughed and raised her eyebrows. She twisted the strand of blue hair on the left around her index finger, another habit she had picked up from Serena when they were younger. Hers was too short to do it properly now.

"Seriously? When was yours?"

"I've had one boyfriend. And I only go for guys in case you were wondering, but that was always pretty obvious. Anyway, the guy I dated lasted three weeks and I cheated on him twice. I didn't even like the guy. I'm not much good when it comes to healthy relationships."

"Evidentially. But I'm kind of glad you're not. Maybe it runs in the family. Although I assumed you and Sherlock were… Something."

"It's kind of complicated. But he likes me and I like him so there's just some stuff we need to work out and establish first and then hopefully we can try it and see how it works. He's kind of confusing though. His mood, his attitude, it can change in a split second. And I don't think he's great with anything emotional, although, I told him about what happened to me, and he was really understanding, and caring."

"He seems like an okay guy. Nowhere near good enough for you, but you'd be hard pressed to find a guy who was. And the way he looks at you is the way I want someone to look at me one day. But if he's not your boyfriend, why are you here?"

"Well I was here to spend some time with Uncle John and his wife Mary, because they're having a kid soon and I want to be a part of its life. They were moving the same day I arrived so it ended up with me staying here, with Sherlock. And that was, four days ago I think? I felt like it went kind of fast, but that was a good thing if you ask me. I'm not really one for taking things like this slowly."

"Have you slept with him?" Marilyn wore a wicked grin as she asked and Serena's eyes widened as she spoke, and the blonde just sat shocked for a moment before she started laughing, covering her mouth with one hand and shaking her head. Marilyn shrugged. "What, because I'm younger than you I'm not supposed to ask?"

"No you are not supposed to ask. And, if and when you do I certainly will not be telling you whether we have or not."

"I'm pretty sure that means that you have, because otherwise you just would have gasped and said 'no' about a million times and made sure that I didn't think the worst of you for sleeping with some guy you've known for four days." Serena had to hand it to her, even after so many years apart, Marilyn still knew her better than most other people knew her. She was pretty sure that she knew Marilyn better than anyone else knew her, but she might have to re-establish their relationship fully before she could say that for sure. But they were talking now as though they hadn't been apart for more than a few days, and they were just catching up with each other. Things felt very comfortable having her around again, and she hoped very much that she would eventually go and live with Harry. When Serena eventually went home it would be nice to have her little sister in close proximity to her. If she chose to go elsewhere of course Serena would respect that and try to help her as much as she could.

"Okay, so maybe something happened. But there were reasons. And it's not like I jumped in to bed with him my first night here. Nothing happened until yesterday. I know that doesn't seem like a long time but for me it's long enough to establish some kind of connection, and clearly it was for him too."

"Wait, this happened yesterday?" Serena nodded. "Yesterday evening?" She nodded again, slower this time, hesitantly realising where this particular branch of conversation was headed and not liking it very much. "So I tore you away from the first guy you've properly liked, possibly ever, and you're still letting me stay with you? You had no sleep last night, and you're still here, talking to me, and you're not pissed off at all. I said before that he doesn't deserve you, and I'll stand by that until he proves me wrong, but I don't deserve you either. I should have a sister who picked up the phone last night and went back to bed with her sort of boyfriend, or who came, saw she couldn't afford bail and went home again. Not someone who got the 'British Government' to bail her out and clear most of the charges."

"I'm not too good for anyone. And I was happy to go last night. I got to see you again."

Marilyn shook her head, black curls bouncing around her face.

"I don't think anyone will ever deserve to have you in their life, Serena. You're too good for the rest of the world. You are the least selfish person I have ever met. Not even as a child did you think of yourself. It was always what was best for me. You threw yourself in front of me and took a beating for me. You kept taking them just so that she wouldn't hurt me anymore and then you'd hold me and say that nothing bad needed to happen to me because you could take all the bad stuff, and I could just be happy. And look how we turned out. You're still selfless and somehow I became a complete fuck up. And one day, I might just be worthy of a second of that selflessness and attention that you give me anyway."

Serena didn't cry. She, for all her emotional tendencies, never really cried. Crying solved nothing, and therefore it was pointless to her.

Very simply she just smiled at her younger sister and wrapped one arm around her shoulder, pulling her close for a second before she let her go. She said nothing emotional back to her, because if she tried then she would have just exhausted herself again, and she felt that with talking to Sherlock earlier she had already used up the daily emotions quota that she was sure she had.

"So when did you learn guitar anyway?" Serena asked her, suddenly much brighter.

"It was few years ago. I used some money Carlie threw at me one birthday and went out and bought it and spend the next six months teaching myself to play it to perfection so I could play all the stupid alternative acoustic songs that I listen to. Like the kind they played sometimes on that radio station we used to listen to in our bedroom on the weekends."

"Can you play something for me?" Serena asked, both tentative and hopeful at the same time, and Marilyn thought for a moment, considering the request presented to her before she nodded, smiling, and looking eager. Serena beamed at her brightly.

Marilyn went through to her room and brought out the case, and went with Serena to the living room. Serena sat in Sherlock's seat, silently hoping that he would find this a little more acceptable than Marilyn being there. Her younger sister sat in the seat across from her, and she had to smile at the younger girl holding her guitar. The instrument was the same colour as the case and the two streaks in her black hair and she looked good holding it. Somehow it suited her better than any jewellery would have done.

"Name me a song. If I know it. I play and you have to sing."

"You, by The Pretty Reckless." Marilyn nodded, and took a moment to figure out the chords before she started to play, and Serena, without any self-consciousness at all began to sing along to the song, one she knew well and loved.

It was only when she looked up halfway through, breaking eye contact with her little sister for a few seconds to look up. She saw Sherlock stood there, watching her, and he was smiling at her sweetly, like she was even more beautiful singing along to the perfect guitar playing. _He really is already in love with me. Screw premature confessions. It's written on his face._

And honestly, Serena didn't know whether that pleased her or terrified her.

* * *

Again, thank you all for the continued support. I appreciate reviews very much, as well as all the follows and favourites, and would be very happy if you could leave me one and let me know what you think!


	13. Thirteen

THIRTEEN

Watching Serena with her younger sister from the kitchen, Sherlock was once again struck by how captivating she was. At first he had though that she would become less enthralling the more time he spent with her, but somehow she not only managed to keep his attention but increased it with every hour he spent with her. Her every movement interested him and when she was in a room he could not focus his attention on anything else, and what's more, he didn't want to. Perhaps he was not entirely thrilled about being put on the side lines now that her little sister was back in the picture, but he could live with it. He never realised how jealous he could be until she came in to his life. He hated her talking to anyone else, paying more attention to them than him. She was all that mattered to him currently, and it was a little difficult for him to accept that he was not all that she cared about too.

On the phone he had spoken to Lestrade, talking to him about Marilyn. There would be no trial for her, which he could tell Serena was grateful for. She had been uninvolved in most of the serious stuff that her friends had been charged with and apparently Mycroft had worked wonders according to Serena. Lestrade had called to ask him to something before he proposed it to Serena. Sherlock was looking for a new John, it had after all been how he introduced Serena, and married and with a child on the way didn't bode well for his future as Sherlock's assistant, not that John had ever let him refer to him as an assistant. Lestrade had wondered if perhaps he might consider taking Marilyn for the position just for a little while, until the case he had found for him was completed. He might need someone for this one, if only just to be someone there he could talk to. He had planned on saying no and just trying to take Serena again, firstly so he could spend even more time with her and it would seem like he wanted her around even more, but also so that she didn't have to see him talking to Billy the skull about the case. Seeing the two of them together though, that resonated with him, and he realised that she would much rather Marilyn went with him that she would want him to ask her along. He knew simply it would make her happy if he tried hard with her sister, and it would make him look good and caring in her eyes.

Sherlock did feel a little bad that he wasn't doing to only for the good of her sister, but the only person who motivated him to be unselfish and do anything good was Serena. As far as he was concerned, her younger sister was very far beyond help, and community service was not going to change that. Of course, he would never say anything like that to her older sister; there was no way Serena was going to see it the same way as he did.

He watched the two of them, who had now moved on to the floor, as Marilyn tried to teach her older sister some of the basics of guitar playing, intending to learn the piano from her as soon as she could as payment for trying to teach her the instrument. He smiled very genuinely at the two of them, for once not caring that Serena was paying attention to someone else.

"I'm very sorry to interrupt, but I had something to ask you." he said finally, deciding not to bother waiting anymore. Marilyn looked up and scowled at him before Serena shot him a look and her expression mellowed a little.

"It's fine." Serena said, smiling brightly and genuinely at him. "What did you want to ask?"

_Oh sweetheart, there is a lot more than this I would rather ask you for, or perhaps more accurately command you to do since you seemed to like that so much last night, but I suppose all that will have to wait and pretend to be more enthused about this idea than I could be about anything else. I hope you appreciate this and the lengths I am going to for you. I want you to realise how much I love you already even though I won't say it until I'm certain that you can say it back to me._

"That was Lestrade on the phone, Serena." She looked a little worried. "No, nothing bad has happened, don't worry." he said quickly, and she smiled again softly, relieved. "He's thought of a very good idea for what Marilyn can do for the police before she's going to be allowed to go home. He would like Marilyn to come and work a case with me that he was just informed about. As soon as the case is done, her punishment will be considered served and she is free to do as she likes and she can leave." His words sounded a lot more malicious and as though he wanted her to leave than he had intended it to, even though he did of course want Marilyn gone so that he could be with Serena alone again. Serena, however, did not seem to notice, and her face lit up in a bright smile, and even Marilyn was looking pleased with the suggestion, and he was actually glad to be able to make them both happy.

"So I get to go to a crime scene and look at dead bodies and blood and stuff instead of picking up rubbish from the side of a road? Awesome." Marilyn said happily. The grin she wore was twisted, and it was the first time since meeting her that Sherlock actually liked anything about her.

"Marilyn!" Serena said, mildly horrified but still smiling at her younger sister as she scolded her.

"Actually, if it's okay with your sister Marilyn I'd like to leave immediately so we can be there within the next hour. Serena, we can be out of your way and give you some time to rest or go and see John and Mary or do whatever else you might like to do with us out of your hair for a few hours." Serena nodded eagerly and Marilyn jumped up from where she was sat and told him she'd just be a moment while she put her boots on and went back in to Serena's room to find them."

"Please look after her for me." Serena said, getting up from the floor. He nodded and wound his arms around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder gently.

"Of course I will sweetheart."

"And I know you're only doing this for me, but I still appreciate it. It's a very sweet thing for you to be doing for me, taking my sister and keeping her out of trouble for a while. And she's really in to the whole blood and darkness thing apparently so this is just right for her." He laughed and kissed the top of her head.

"I think you know me too well already sweetheart. You're supposed to think I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart." It was her turn to laugh now, and he wasn't hurt that she did, because it was admittedly completely ridiculous.

"No, I like that you're doing it for me. It shows how much you care. And look, when you get back we can talk things over if you'd like and then see if we can't pick up where we left off last night." This made him smirk slightly.

"That sounds very agreeable to me, sweetheart."

She kissed him softly and he dropped his arms from around her as Marilyn walked out of Serena's bedroom. The boots went up to her knees and had large platform soles and laces the entire way up them. Serena smiled at her and said goodbye to them both and went in to her room, probably with the intention of sleeping. She still looked exhausted despite the ridiculous amount of coffee she had consumed that morning while her bed had been occupied by her younger sister. He had offered her his bed, but she wanted to stay up and wait for Marilyn to wake up so she could talk to her. He wondered if that was to make up for what she had snapped at her outside the police station.

"Are you ready to go, Marilyn?" he asked her.

He already missed Serena. He didn't like having to ask people to do things for him; he liked ordering them around and watching them do it and not realising why they were being so compliant. It was his demeanour. If it was Serena, he would have just told her to leave with him and then spent most of his time ordering her around and seeing how far he could push her. He wondered if she would still let him do that now she realised why he did it, and hoped that she would. They would have to talk about how much she would be comfortable with him doing as a Dominant, whether sexually or otherwise. The night before had been good of course, and he was grateful she had let him do anything in that area, but he craved to have more control over her, if she would let him.

"Yeah, I am. And thank you for letting me do this. I know you'd probably prefer I didn't come and you're probably only doing this to win favour with Blondie, but if you're doing it because you care about my sister then I'm not going to complain. She deserves someone who'll do stuff like this for her. I'm still not convinced that you're entirely good enough but you're definitely up there. You could be a hell of a lot worse."

"Well, thank you for that. Now come on, the taxi will be waiting outside." She nodded and walked out of the front door, and he followed her, shutting it quietly in case Serena was already asleep in her room.

The drive was short, and Sherlock was beginning to find Marilyn a genuinely nice person to be around. She clearly cared deeply for her sister which was of paramount importance to him, and he liked her in a very different way of course. Marilyn was sarcastic and quick witted and utterly different to her sweet older sister. She seemed to have very little patience for anyone she deemed unworthy of her company, which was proved when she met Sally, who he believed her sister had got on very well with, and refused to give her more than monosyllabic answers to the things she said to her and the fact that Marilyn rolled her eyes every time she spoke at all to her. He was realising that perhaps he wouldn't mind Marilyn staying with them, so long as it wasn't too long.

Now he was just worried that when Marilyn decided to leave, Serena would go with her. He honestly had no idea how he was going to cope when she went back to her normal life, back to her own home. It was selfish, but he couldn't bear the thought of her leaving.

_You're going to have to get over that. You've always been selfish and never given a damn about it. She obviously doesn't care either; she likes that you only think about yourself, and now by extension, her. Stop overthinking everything with her. Save the clever logistics for the crime scene and just let things with her happen._

The house that was the crime scene was burnt down. Hardly anything of it remained, just a crumbling, burnt exterior and the remains of what looked to be a very grand, elegant staircase and an upstairs which was almost completely gone other than a few beams with had once made up the floor. He really had never seen a house that had been allowed to burn that far – usually it was called in and put out before it got to this stage. There was never less than five rooms left, and here there were barely two.

Marilyn was looking around like an expert, as though she actually knew what she was doing there even more than he did. For all he knew, she actually did know a little about this kind of thing, although he expected her knowledge didn't extend past books.

"Who owned this house?" Sherlock asked, as Marilyn crouched down beside three completely scorched bodies, internal organs barely visible.

"The house belonged to a James Marcel. As far as we can tell, one of the bodies is his, and the others are his wife Frida and his ten year old daughter Chloe. James owned a large chain of companies and as far as anyone can tell there's no reason he should have been killed, no real enemies or stiff competition in the business world." Lestrade was explaining. "If the house wasn't so badly burnt we just would have assumed they left the oven on or something, but there's so much damage that we had to consider other options. At the moment the most likely scenario is that the whole house was covered in petrol and set alight with a few matches thrown in the right places."

"It would have been a lighter, but yes, that's probably about right." Marilyn turned and smirked as Sherlock spoke. He got the sense he liked anyone who undermined anyone else no matter how nice they were. "What is that?" he asked, pointing to a cuboid steel block lying on the floor beside them.

"That's the top of a hammer. The wooden part was obviously burnt off in the fire but the metal remains." Sherlock turned and looked at Marilyn. "What? I have to fix stuff a lot. I know my tools. It was hardly difficult, although, actually, I don't expect you do a lot of manual labour so I wouldn't expect you to really get that." That then posed the question of why it was there with the bodies. Sherlock walked over and kneeled beside Marilyn who was frowning softly at the bodies. "That definitely doesn't look right." She pointed to the heart on the largest body. There was a small hole passing through the first layer of muscle, easily missed. He assumed that the detectives from New Scotland Yard had already missed the detail. He was impressed that Marilyn had not missed it.

He felt around the hole with gloved hands and the girl beside him didn't even flinch. He managed to wriggle the tip of a finger inside the heart and took it out when he found something nestled inside it.

"That's wood, right? Like a splinter in his heart." Sherlock nodded.

_This man obviously didn't die in the fire. He was killed before, and the fire was used as some kind of cover up which killed his family in the process. Collateral damage. They happen to be unimportant, at least in the instance of this investigation. He's the one we need to be looking at, not the others. Why was he killed first, and why the fire to cover it up? Were his family also intended to die, and if so then why did the same thing not happen to them?_

Once again, Sherlock's interior monologue was being spoken aloud.

"I think he was staked." Marilyn spoke quietly, as though she was unsure of herself. The two men in the room (or what at least used to be a room) looked at her blankly. "Like with vampires, wooden stake hammered in to the heart. It would explain the hammer at least and I can't think of anything else that would." Sherlock simply looked at her, dumbfounded and impressed both somehow conveyed in the same expression. Nobody deduced things like that quicker than her did. Upon seeing his expression Marilyn smiled slightly. "Hey, if Serena had forced you to watch Dracula as many times as she made me do as a kid you would have figured that out even quicker than I did. And it's probably wrong."

"No, it makes sense. It would explain why fire was used; a wooden stake left at the crime scene would be burnt like kindling. There's no way of tracing the weapon, no fingerprints left over here. I think you might be right."

They looked around for a while, but anything that might have helped them any further had been burnt away in the fire, and eventually the pair had to give up. The bodies were taken away to be identified somehow – It would have to be a DNA test, they were barely recognisable as people, let alone individual human beings with identities and names. That was the other thing about Marilyn, she looked at this objectively. This was a crime scene, and there was no way to help these people now except to catch whoever the hell had killed them. Serena never would have been able to do that. She would have never been able to emotionally detach herself from these people – and she would have seen them as people rather than corpses – and he doubted, with no insult meant to Serena's intelligence, if she would have been able to deduce the way Marilyn had done when she was too busy being angry and upset that three people were lying dead in the same room as her.

Sherlock took Marilyn to lunch, again impressed by her, but for a different reason, that she was able to eat directly after a crime scene.

"I'll tell Serena what a good time I had and that you took me out to eat and how nice you were to me. I know you want to win brownie points with her, but I actually did have a good time. Does that make me really weird?" He shook his head and his mouth formed a wide grin.

"No, I'm exactly the same. It's the challenge, being able to observe human behaviour" She simply had to nod and agree with him.


	14. Fourteen

FOURTEEN

Serena had slept until midday and then decided that she didn't want to waste the rest of the day and got up. It took her until she had made herself a cup of tea and sat down on her own in the living room to realise that she was incredibly bored. Sherlock was usually around somewhere to interest her or there was a plan to do something later.

It was very relieving therefore when Greg called her only about ten minutes later and asked if she wanted to go to lunch with him. She jumped in the first taxi which came along, leaving a short note for Sherlock and her younger sister to explain where she had gone.

She met Greg in a small Turkish restaurant and immediately ordered a Pomegranate Mojito. It had been enjoyable drinking the other day; it wasn't something she tended to do predominantly because she had never been able to in her house with her mother being around, and neither of her flatmates drank now so it wasn't really an option there either. But she figured that technically this counted as a holiday, or it had until it started to go a bit haywire, and she might as well drink while she had the chance.

"So when did this thing with you and Mycroft start?" she asked him, and he smiled softly.

"Quite a few months ago now. Obviously we aren't telling Sherlock or anyone else really but we might do now because if we don't then you probably will." Serena raised her eyebrows and shook her head at him. Yes, she had told Sherlock she had something to tell him about his brother but he was on a case now and his mind was occupied and if Greg and Mycroft wanted to keep it private then that was their business, not hers. She liked Greg and didn't want to betray his trust and whatever she might have thought about Mycroft at first he certainly had helped her out before by sorting everything with his sister, so she supposed she owed him this at the very least. He smiled at her, relieved that she wouldn't tell anyone. "Well, thank you Serena. It's nothing personal – although can you imagine some of the comments?" She smirked and tried her hardest not to laugh. Of course she could imagine the kinds of things he would say, and she wasn't surprised they weren't telling him. "Besides, it's kind of more fun to keep it a secret, and if it doesn't work out then we don't have the annoyance of telling everyone about it."

"So it's good? Being with him? How long has it been going on for now?"

"Yeah, I really love being with him. I've fancied him for ages, even back when I was married, and even more after. It was him who suggested I finally end things with her. It took me ages to finally get up the courage to tell him I liked him and he just said 'Well Gregory, that took you long enough'."

"That sounds about right." she said, laughing softly. "But it's good for you two, you seemed sweet together earlier. Mycroft is decidedly nicer around you than he is on his own."

"Together earlier? Please tell me you're not talking about walking in on us in my office."

"No I am not talking about that. We agreed never ever to mention it again, did we not? I was talking about before that in the corridor. The cute PG rated romance rather than the totally R rated… Office business." Serena could tell her cheeks were flushed as she spoke. She obviously didn't have a problem with sex, just walking in on two people who she didn't know particularly with one of them bent over a desk. Greg had worryingly soundproof walls. How was she to know that the clock in the waiting room was five minutes fast and that when she went there at the time she had been explicitly instructed to the two of them would still be fucking? Or, for that matter, that they would be fucking at all considering it was supposed to be Greg's shift at work and Mycroft was supposed to be bailing her little sister out of the temporary cell she was sharing with three other people.

"Let's talk about your love life instead." She raised her eyebrows and shook her head decisively. She felt like she was already pretty good friend with Greg, but hell if she was going to tell him anything about Sherlock. Although, she was already on her third Mojito. She was feeling decidedly more honest than usual.

"I'm just confused all the time. I mean, first he's just weird and I'm like 'where the fuck do I stand with this guy' then he doesn't want me, then he does, we kiss, we fuck, Marilyn shows up, I basically tell him everything I've had bottled up since I was fourteen and he still doesn't care apparently but it's exhausting. I wish he was less complicated. I mean, he's amazing obviously but fuck, he just needs to make it clear what we are and I'll go along with it."

"Maybe you're the one over complicating it." She raised her eyebrows and he shrugged uncaringly. "For all his bravado Sherlock is actually pretty simple. I mean, it's hard to keep up with him but once you strip away the whole cocky genius thing he's just a normal bloke."

This might be true were she anyone else, but a normal guy for her was quite simply someone who either didn't catch her attention at all (no offence meant to Greg, but this was the category he fell in to) or who she was interested in until she fucked them and got it out of her system and never thought about them again. Sherlock couldn't be normal because it wasn't like that at all with him. For a while the night before she had wondered if maybe it would be like that with Sherlock. Of course she felt more strongly about him before than she had any of the others, but there was always a chance that the obsession would still have been a fleeting one. It wasn't, and she was glad of that, but that made Sherlock utterly exceptional to her. In her eyes he was anything but normal, and yes, that meant that she would overthink, overanalyse, and care way too much, but only because she didn't want to miss anything that could make it all fall apart. She liked having someone who cared deeply for her – and she knew he did – and she didn't want to lose it before it had barely begun.

"I'm not sure normal is in the list of words I would choose to describe Sherlock." she mused with a wide grin. Greg laughed loudly.

"Perhaps the two of us did something in a past life to end up lumbered with the Homes brothers. I mean, it has to be karma for something, right? No-one gets that unlucky for no reason." Her eyes widened and she took a large sip of her drink through the thin straw, finishing it and signalling for yet another to be brought over.

"Firstly, I don't feel like I'm that unlucky. I mean sure, they have their… quirks, but they're good people. Well, Mycroft's a bit of dick, or he was at first, but I've already gotten used to that so you must be pretty comfortable with it."

"Yeah, he's really sweet to me. It's just other people that he hates."

"And secondly, I think it's a bit early to say I'm 'lumbered' with him. I mean, that insinuates that it's a permanent thing, and it's not. Probably. I mean, I have a home in a different country and connections in art galleries up there and I don't even know if we are anything, and if we are then who's to say we'll even make it to the end of the week, let alone until I go home or even further than that. There really is just no way to tell." She punctuated most of her sentences with a sip from the new glass that had been brought to her. Serena could tell from his expression that Greg wanted to tell her to slow down, but that seemed pointless to her. If he wanted to know about Sherlock then she was going to have to retain a significant amount of alcohol in her bloodstream or else she would simply stop talking and keep anything she had not yet told him to herself like she would much prefer to be doing anyway. But Greg really was the only person she could talk to, and she felt like she should tell someone. John was impossible to talk to about this kind of thing; he was family and slightly judgemental. Marilyn was the same. Mary would tell John. Of course she couldn't tell Sherlock, it was about him, and she wasn't going to tell Mycroft – she barely knew him and he didn't exactly seem trustworthy. She wondered if Greg would tell him, and if he did, would everything she had said get back to Sherlock fairly quickly? She hoped not. She liked Greg a lot already and she would hate to have to freeze him for breaking the friend code of conduct.

"Well, as far as I can tell that will be up to you. Sherlock doesn't look at women the way he looks at you, no exception until now. I don't think he's going to be too happy if whatever it is you actually have ends after a week."

"He might be. After all, he barely knows me. He might realise after a while that he finds me an utterly insufferable person. I'm sure Marilyn is with him now thinking of a million horror stories from when we were younger which will ensure that just that happens." Greg chuckled and shook his head.

"When I was with them they were both too busy looking at burnt bodies and discussing vampires. Your name only came up because your sister mentioned how many Dracula films you had made her watch as a kid, although I'm sure Sherlock spent most of his time there thinking about you. Marilyn was doing all the deducing today; I'm not sure you're very good for his mental capacity." Serena smiled brightly, even though this probably wasn't a good thing. She could distract the great detective that she had read so much about from her uncle on his blog and in papers so much that he was letting a sixteen year old solve a case which he could probably very easily do himself usually. She felt an odd sense of pride welling inside her. _He really does like me as much as Greg seems to think he does then._

"What were he and my sister planning to do this afternoon then?" she asked him, hoping that Sherlock would at least attempt to keep her out of anything illegal that he might find himself involved in.

"As far as I know he was taking her out to lunch and then they were going to go down to the lab to perform some tests on burning wood or something. To be honest the two of them were so in the zone that I didn't like to interrupt and ask what the hell either of the two of them was on about. They're weirdly similar actually, although I think maybe Marilyn was putting quite a bit of it on to mock him or because she thought copying him would make her sound cleverer to him."

"There are a few similarities between them. Marilyn always though she was too good for everyone else exactly the way he does." Greg shook his head.

"Well, the other more obvious one to me is that they're both willing to decapitate the other if they hurt you. I've never had family who cared about me the way Marilyn does about you and until Mycroft I never had a partner who did either. My ex-wife was an utter bitch who only married me to please her parents then cheated on me with any guy who was willing to have her, and my family were so disappointed I didn't decide to be a surgeon like the rest of them and freaked out so much when I told them that I liked men as well as women that they've barely spoken to me since my early twenties."

"That's so awful. I'm very glad that you have people who care about you now though. Especially Mycroft. I'm sure he's very good to you. For all the oddities that I've seen from him he does seem care about other people. Well, you."

"Oddities is a very pleasant way to put that." he said with a wide grin before he yawned softly.

"Am I boring you?" Serena teased him gently. He shook his head rapidly. "Don't worry, I know you had a night shift last night and then a shift this morning, plus having to be around Sherlock, and ooh, don't forget all the sex in your office last night," she said, unable to resist making another joke about that even though she remembered making plenty at the station the night before. "So I'm really not all that surprised you're tired. Come on, let's go, you try and get a taxi, I'll pay for lunch." He tried to refuse the offer but she simply held her hand up to him and went to go and pay. Once she was done she met him on the street and he quickly managed to flag down a taxi. The two hugged goodbye familiarly and Serena, deciding it was a nice enough day, chose just to walk home.

She hadn't taken pictures since her first day in London, so she stopped in a park on the way home to take pictures of the colourful autumn trees and tried to contrast each one with a shot of the streets nearby. She planned to change the urban pictures to black and white later and leave some of the colours in – there was a good one she wanted to doctor so the only thing with any colour was the pink teddy bear a small child was holding.

With all the photographing it took Serena quite a while to make her way back to Sherlock's flat and by the time she did, Marilyn and him were already there. From what she could hear the two of them were actually getting on very well, and it made them smile, because if he didn't mind the younger girl staying with him too much then she didn't have to pressure Marilyn to figure out what she was going to do about her living situation. She wanted her to go back to Harry but if she didn't want to then unfortunately that was her choice and she'd have to find somewhere else for her little sister.

"Hey Serena!" Marilyn said brightly. There were shopping bags on the floor. She raised her eyebrows. "The case was so much fun, you would have hated it, there were these three brunt bodies, and – Oh shit! – Am I allowed to tell her this?" Sherlock chuckled and nodded and she sighed relieved. "Well, it was awesome. Thanks for making me watch all those Dracula films when I was little even if they did stop me sleeping on more than one occasion." Admittedly, she had no idea what her sister was talking about, but she was glad she was having a good time, even if she was supposed to be being punished for being involved with criminals rather than deciding on a career in the police because she liked creepy dead bodies so much. Serena struggled not to shiver. Marilyn was right; she would have hated all that, and was still very grateful that Lestrade hadn't let her in to the crime scene Sherlock had taken her to the other day.

"I'm glad the two of you had fun." she said, assuming her position from when Mycroft had been round the other night on the floor. She could have just sat on Sherlock's lap but she felt kind of odd doing anything vaguely romantic with him when her sister was present, and she'd rather not make it awkward. "Where are all the bags from then?"

"I came home with her after the two of us went to lunch and realised she had about three outfits stuffed in to that backpack and no more, so I took her back out again to get some new stuff. Or rather I sent her off with some money and went off on my own. Clothes are very dull." Serena laughed and nodded. She had always loathed clothes shopping but remembered just how much Marilyn loved it.

"Marilyn, why don't you go and put that stuff up in the wardrobe in my room and change in to something, John and Mary are making dinner and I told them earlier you'll be coming. John can't wait to see you." She smiled brightly and took the many bags in to the other room. Serena got up from the floor and took the seat her sister had been in. "You know you really didn't have to do that. How much do I owe you for all the clothes?" Sherlock sighed deeply, shook his head, and took her hand across the coffee table.

"Nothing of course. Why should I mind paying for a few things for her? I promise, this time it's not just a favour for you. I actually like your sister. She's been, amongst other things, a wonderful help on this case despite my initial reservations about her potential usefulness to me when I first heard she would be coming with me. She can consider this the payment from me for working the case and being my assistant."

"Well, then thank you." He smirked as she spoke.

"You can thank me properly later." She laughed softly and nodded in agreement. _That seems fair enough. It's not like I wasn't planning on it anyway, just as soon as I'm sure Marilyn's asleep this evening and that I can be quiet enough that I won't wake her up because that would be horribly awkward._

"I need to go and get changed now." she told him and he nodded in agreement, standing because clearly he needed to do the same. He gave her a very soft, chaste kiss before he walked in to his room and she smiled to herself before she went to her room and rapped gently on the door.

* * *

So, so sorry, I know I usually update daily (sometimes twice), but I was in London and then I had a party and I was being generally sociable and stuff so there was no time and I'm sorry! Second chapter will either be later tonight or early tomorrow!


	15. Fifteen

FIFTEEN

John had come to pick up the three of them from Sherlock's flat. His new house was mostly decorated and so out of the way that no taxi driver would ever have heard of the area. Besides, he didn't mind too much. If he was driving it meant he wasn't drinking, and he knew it annoyed Mary when he drank, because she couldn't while she was pregnant. Sherlock was also happy to have him driving, because it meant he didn't have to deal with Serena and Marilyn by himself.

"Wow, Marilyn, I can't have seen you since you were, what, ten years old?" John gushed, hugging the shorter girl. She grinned and shook her head.

"No, I don't think I've seen you since I was eight actually. You went off to fight in wars and stuff and I was always at school when you were back. I wanted to come back and see you when you came back permanently and I wish I had been able to come to the wedding, but it wasn't really possible, what with Carlie and then her kicking me out."

"It's fine, I'm just glad you're here now, and I hope we'll be able to keep in touch. Baby Serena will need her cousins around." Serena stiffened and looked away from him, clearly still not comfortable with the idea of a child being named after her.

"You're calling the baby Serena? Oh how sweet! What a good choice, Serena, stop acting embarrassed, you should be flattered they're choosing you to be her namesake."

"I am." she said softly. "I'm just not sure I deserve it."

"Why wouldn't you? You amazing, sweet, kind, caring, all the other boring things." Marilyn said, smirking softly to herself. John chuckled. "If it should be named after anyone then it's certainly you. Was that your idea John? I'm going to assume that since she's all embarrassed about it that it didn't come from Serena anyway."

"Actually it was Mary's, you'll meet her tonight. She's home cooking right now."

"Oh, I can't wait to meet her!" Marilyn gushed in a way which was very unlike her. "How far along in the pregnancy is she?"

"She's due late next month." John answered her.

Sherlock was watching the whole interaction curiously. There were several elephants in the room as far as Sherlock could see; one of course was that Marilyn was only there because of the rather questionable activities that she had been involved in, and another fairly obvious one was that Marilyn was not actually John's niece like Serena was, but the product of his sister's ex-wife. Sherlock wondered if John knew, as he did, the reasons behind the break-up of their marriage. He thought that it was more likely that he didn't; there was a certain facial expression John wore when he was very uncomfortable, and his face was clear of it. If he had known surely he would have felt decidedly more awkward than he appeared to then. Another matter was that he, as far as Sherlock knew, was unaware of what had transpired between Sherlock and Serena the night before. Serena couldn't hold eye contact with him for long. Guilt.

He stood, finally deciding he'd had enough of watching the small talk. Sherlock wasn't sure why it was insisted that he go with them, but Serena had seemed happy when she realised that he was, so he wasn't going to complain.

"We should be on our way now." Serena and John nodded compliantly and walked out of the door and Marilyn stood, hand on her hip, smirking at him, shaking her head. She looked a lot like she was trying very hard not to laugh. "What is it now?" He accompanied his words with a deep sigh, and her smirk widened.

"I was just wondering how it must feel." she said with a shrug.

"How what feels, Marilyn?" He was reluctant to even answer her because he knew whatever she said would be a sarcastic line for which there was no comeback.

"How it feels to have two adults so whipped that either of them, perhaps both of them together, would jump off a cliff if you told them to." she said very seriously, meeting his eyes and not smiling for a second before she grinned and walked out after them, very much on her own terms and not his. He sighed and followed her, but he was smiling softly. She turned to him on the stairs, still grinning. "Do you think it's a Watson thing? I mean, I seem to be immune to it, don't I?"

"Maybe it's just an everyone but Marilyn thing." he suggested. She laughed.

"Let's hope so. I'd be so much more boring if I just did whatever people told me to. But it's not going to be a problem. In fact, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that you'll be doing what I tell you before I'll be following instructions from you."

"I'd like to say I disagree, but yes. I think you'll have me… How did you put it? Ah yes, whipped, before I have you doing anything I want you to."

She grinned even wider and the two of them arrived at the car. Serena was already sat in the back, and Marilyn rushed for the front seat, and pulled a face at him before she got in. As he got in he watched her in the rear-view mirror as she pulled a disgusted face upon hearing the music and flipped through stations until she found a song she liked, turned the volume up as high as it would go and settled back in her seat.

"_You like to think you broke the mould, but, now I'm sure you'll crack just like the rest when I break your fucking jaw._" Marilyn sang along with the radio, grinning when she sang that, clearly her favourite line. Her voice was very different to Serena's, who sounded like she should be singing one of those god-awful pop songs John had used to like to listen to but who had decided instead to sing more alternative, and frankly better although not to his taste, music. Marilyn's voice belonged with those kind of songs, and she had the look to go with it. He watched as Serena, smiling brightly at her, filmed her singing on her phone from the backseat, angling the camera towards her face, although her sister clearly hadn't noticed. She looked up and Serena quickly put the phone away in her handbag before she saw her.

"Oh, you've gotten even better. She could always sing way better than I could." Serena seemed to be talking to him, and he had to smile. Their voices were too different to compare really.

"You should sing together." John suggested, and Serena nodded eagerly. Marilyn had already stopped listening and started singing a different song, which he recognised as being the one Serena had sung the morning she made him breakfast, and Serena was pulling out her phone again to film this too. Again, Marilyn didn't notice, and it continued in this way until John stopped the car outside his house, which was indeed in the middle of nowhere, well, as close as someone could get to that while still technically living in London. Sherlock got out of the car first, followed by the others. John walked in and the rest of them followed him inside. The house was large, and he took them straight into a spacious living room. He pondered for a moment before he took a seat in an armchair instead of on the sofa. Serena sat on the seat closest to him on the sofa and Marilyn on the other armchair.

"Would you all like a drink? Red or white wine? Or anything else." John asked, staying standing.

"I'll have a red wine please. Marilyn will have a diet coke." Serena answered him, smiling sweetly at her little sister, who smiled back at her sardonically but didn't complain. At least she knew when not to argue. Sherlock probably would have tried anyway if it was him.

"I'll have the same as Serena. It's probably rude to ask for whisky before dinner." Marilyn chuckled softly and John rolled his eyes before he left the room. It was Mary who came back in holding a tray of drinks and handed them to Serena who gave them out to everyone so Mary didn't have to walk too far. It seemed impossible to Sherlock that she could have another month to go before she gave birth. Serena smiled brightly at her and Marilyn looked like she was trying not to visibly squirm. He looked at her questioningly and she shrugged.

"The thought of being pregnant makes me feel kind of ill. I really hate kids." she said, so quiet only he could have possibly heard her. He nodded.

"Hey, Marilyn, I'm Mary. It's nice to meet you." She was about to walk over but Marilyn quickly got up and went over to her. Mary went to hug her, but Marilyn managed skilfully to turn it in to a handshake instead. She went back to her seat and Mary sat down beside Serena, resting her hands on her stomach. He wondered why pregnant women did that. Were they checking the baby was still there? Trying to protect their child, not that hands would make a very good defence of course? Or was it just an upside of pregnancy that for several months they were provided with a surface to rest their hands on?

"It's nice to meet you too Mary. Sherlock told me such lovely thing about you earlier."

Her bright smile never faltered, but he tried very hard not to glare at her. He had mentioned her only once over his lunch with Marilyn when he was talking about how he used to work with John and said only that it was moderately unhelpful when she was just around, but even more so now she was married to John and pregnant because it meant he refused to come out on cases and help Sherlock as much. He seemed to recall that her reply had been a loud laugh and that she had said 'Wow, you're needy when it comes to your friends' before she started eating again. He had been displeased. If it had been Serena he would have hopefully gotten some sympathy whether she meant it or not. Marilyn was too blunt for that.

"He did?" Mary sounded surprised. Marilyn nodded enthusiastically. "Sherlock, that's so sweet. We knew he'd come around to my stealing his best friend away eventually."

_You did not steal John. I pretended to be dead, and he attempted to replace me with a lesser model, and when I came back I let you keep him. Continue with this nonsense and I might have to find a way to change that. Actually, I might anyway, because even if she is far more useful, I do not like to be back chatted by my assistants, ergo Marilyn will not suffice in the long term. I'll keep her until the end of this case._

"So Serena, did John tell you we decided to use your name?" Mary asked eagerly.

"Yeah he did. I was shocked at first, but it's so nice to know that the both of you think so highly of me and that you're going to name your child after me. Have you picked a middle name for her yet?"

"Now, if this isn't Sherlock I really will be quite hurt." Sherlock said, shaking his head.

"I really don't understand why you decided to go with Serena when you could have called your child Sherlock." Marilyn said, voice dripping with sarcasm, but with a small smile. "It's such a beautiful name for a girl." She looked at him and rolled her eyes, and he folded his arms like a child. She laughed softly and turned back to Mary, pressing her lips together.

"I really am going to have my hands full with the two of them, aren't I?" Serena said to Mary, shaking her head now. Mary nodded and looked at her sympathetically.

"Yes, you are. They're like two unruly children. I hope mine isn't like that." Both of them pulled faces at her, and she and Serena started laughing. "But, in answer to your question, yes we have. Serena Diana Watson. We thought it worked and that it was pretty. Do you like it, or do you think it should be something else?" Serena shook her head quickly, as though she was trying to banish the notion of her disapproving of it from the room entirely. Mary beamed; glad she had chosen something that she liked.

"Okay you lot, dinner!" John yelled from the kitchen. Serena helped Mary up and helped her through to the adjoining dining room. Marilyn stood and he looked at her and she sighed and pulled his arm to help him up.

"You are not pregnant. You do not need my help."

"Firstly, excellent deductive skills. You've clearly learnt a lot from me in the one day you spent working a case with me." She laughed and started walking with him to the dining room. "Secondly, I'm being kind enough to let you work with me. If I need help getting up you do not question it, you just accept it. Learn the rules."

"Did he make you help him up from chairs because he was too lazy to haul his fat arse out of them himself?" Marilyn asked John, who chuckled and nodded.

Sherlock sat next to Serena who smiled at him and discreetly took his hand under the table before he spoke.

"It's my brother who's fat, not me."

"Sherlock!" John scolded.

"Come now John, we both know that the diet he's on will only work so long before he succumbs to the smell of a bakery he's passing by and puts it all and more back on." Marilyn laughed loudly. "And also, John, unlike you, did not complain, because it's an integral part of being my assistant." She rolled her eyes.

"Get Serena to do it next time."

"Uh, what makes you think I'd rather help him out of chairs? That sounds like unnecessary effort to me."

Dinner continued in the pleasant way, and Sherlock actually began to enjoy himself. For all the upset she had caused by being there at first, he had to admit that Mary's cooking somewhat redeemed her. She was excellent. Marilyn also, in between insulting him, was incredibly amusing, and it wasn't just him anyway, she seemed to have quips and insults prepared for everyone, including Mary who she had only just met, and no-one took them all that seriously. She seemed to mean them in rather a fond way actually.

"If she just ignores you then she hates you. If she insults you it means you're important enough for her to bother thinking about." Serena explained while he sat looking confused. He nodded and decided just to take anything she threw at him that night and perhaps spend some time later preparing some lines to throw back at her the next day.

Serena decided to clear up after dessert and before her and John went out for a walk that Sherlock and Marilyn had refused to go on with them and which Mary had happily got out of because she was pregnant and tired. Sherlock went in to the kitchen to help her wash up as they hadn't purchased a dishwasher yet. She turned around when she saw him and grinned, flicking some of the bubbles at him.

"You're not mad at me, right? It's just you've barely spoken to me since we got here."

"God no, of course not! I just… I know you haven't told John yet about what happened, with us, and last time he saw us I was still in my scared of you phase, although I was half naked, so I thought it would be best to keep the pretence up until we approached the topic with him."

"That probably is a good idea." he agreed. She kissed him softly and brushed his hair back from his face before John called her, and she kissed him again before she left.

He spent the next fifteen minutes washing up, and he was almost done when he heard a piercing scream come from Marilyn in the living room. He dropped the dish he was holding to the stone floor of the kitchen and ran straight in to the room. Mary was on the carpet and Marilyn was knelt next to her, clutching her hand.

"See, I told you that would get his attention." Marilyn said, and Mary laughed before she winced. "The baby's coming. You can drive us to the hospital, Sherlock."


	16. Sixteen

SIXTEEN

By the time Serena and John got back to his house, it was almost midnight. They had been out for hours, and she was pleased with herself because she had managed to successfully divert the conversation a number of times, and he was still clueless about the fact that she and Sherlock had slept together. Usually she was terrible at keeping secrets so it was quite an achievement for her to have kept this one. It would probably be best if she let Sherlock break the news to him, and she'd rather not be in the room anyway. John had quite a temper at times and she figured Sherlock could handle it better than she could.

The house was dark when they arrived back and John gave her a confused look and she shrugged in reply. He tried the door and realised it was locked, and quickly unlocked it and hurried in. Serena followed him.

She could hear her phone ringing in the house and ran into the living room and found it in her bag which she had left there. It was Sherlock and she answered it quickly and put it on speakerphone so John could hear him speak too.

"Where are you?" she said worriedly, leaving out any sort of greeting.

"Hospital. Mary's gone in to labour. Where the fuck have you been, Serena, I've been trying to ring you for two and a half hours now. John too. Mary's severely pissed at both of you. I suggest you get here immediately, lest John miss the birth of his daughter and be subjected to her eternal wrath."

As he was talking John had become paler and paler and sat down on the sofa. Serena pulled him up quickly, scowling at him.

"We'll be there as soon as possible. I'm guessing you have the car, so we might be a little longer while we try and find transport. Do not let her have that child until John gets there, or I swear I will never forgive you."

"Well, I can't have that. I'll try my best. She's not to close at the moment, so hopefully you'll be okay. See you here."

She put the phone down quickly and sighed when she saw John still stood in a daze.

"John, man up. Your wife is having a baby and if you don't hurry up you are going to miss it and you'll regret that forever. She needs you there with her, okay?" He nodded, and she ran a hand back through her hair. "Okay. We're going to go and knock as loudly as we can on the doors of as many people nearby that we need to until we find someone willing to lend us a car to get there. I'll drive, you're in no condition to do so, you're far too shocked. I promise, I'll get you there. Ready?" He nodded, and she marched out of the house, followed by him.

It took her three houses before anyone came to the door.

"Do I know you?" The young woman at the door asked. She was smiling and had strawberry blonde hair tied up in a messy bun on the back of her head. She looked behind Serena and smiled. "Oh, John right? You just moved in. I saw your wife going out earlier."

"Yeah, she's gone in to labour." John said, seemingly having found his voice again. The woman raised her eyebrows, looking a little worried. "We were out on a walk, just to get a feel for the neighbourhood when it happened. Luckily we had people there to be with her. Jane, I'm so sorry to ask but could we borrow your car? I need to get down there, now."

"Actually, I was just going there. I'm a nurse, remember? Someone got sick on their nightshift and I have to fill in for them. I'll drive you down." Serena noticed that she was indeed in a uniform and they wouldn't have to wait, and the two of them nodded eagerly at her, and she picked up her keys and left her house, locking the door and walking to her blue car parked just outside. John let out an audible sigh of relief and Serena smiled at her brightly. She allowed John to sit in the front. "So, no offence meant, who are you?" The woman she now knew as Jane asked her.

"I'm Serena, I'm John's niece. My sister and John's friend are with Mary at the moment, they took the car." She explained brightly and Jane began to drive.

They sat in silence for most of the car journey, and Serena yelled a quick thank you before she got out quickly, and took John's arm. He was standing again, nervous and dazed, but they didn't have time for him to start freaking out again. She broke in to a run, pulling him behind her, and eventually once he had adjusted she let go and let him run along beside her. They quickly reached reception.

"Mary Watson." They said her name in unison, both breathless.

"I'm her husband, she's having a baby." John said quickly.

"She's in room three-oh-seven. Don't worry, she was brought in to us a little early, she's not ready to give birth yet. You're here in time." The man sat there said, smiling. Serena turned and saw Jane coming in, and the two waved at each other before she and John hurried to the stairs and began to ascend them.

Mary was in a private room, and Marilyn and Sherlock were there with her. Serena let John go in and followed him after a moment. Mary beamed at them and then cried out as the sharp pain of a contraction hit her. John stood by her side quickly and kissed her forehead, taking her hand and rubbing his thumb over the back of it. Marilyn stood on the other side of her and stroked her hand through the other woman's hair.

"I'm sorry, some will have to go. She needs her privacy; it'll be time soon."

Apart from John they all went to leave the room, but Mary shook her head and told them to stop.

"I want Marilyn with me too. No offence to the two of you, but it's just that she's been so good since all this started, so calm and dependable, and so I'd like her here with me and John. She'll keep me sane though all this. Serena nodded and she and Sherlock hugged her quickly.

Serena embraced Sherlock as he left the room, and the two walked hand in hand to the waiting room on that floor. He wound his arms around her as they sat in the waiting room.

"Two sleepless nights in a row? I'm going to be completely useless for the next few days." she mumbled as she sat with her head resting on her shoulder. He wound his hands in her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple. She nuzzled her head in to his neck happily and he pulled her in even closer to him.

"Yes, it's not been a particularly restful 'holiday' for you, has it?" he sounded genuinely sympathetic towards her.

"But it's still been a good one." she said with a small smile.

"Definitely." he agreed. "I'm certainly glad that you're here, and that I didn't protest too much about having you stay with me. How much longer are you planning on being here anyway? I'm happy to have you as long as you'd like to stay."

"I don't really know now, because I was planning to leave in a few weeks and take care of some things at home and come back once the baby was born so I could help out and bond with my cousin, but I think now that she's being born early I might stay for a little while longer. If that's okay with you of course, I don't want to cause any inconvenience by taking up space in your flat for longer than you want me there."

"Serena, sweetheart, do you honestly think I'm going to complain about having you there? I'm already dreading you going home."

"Don't worry about that yet. Hopefully it's a long time away, and I'll be back whenever I can."

"I have an idea about how we can go about this." he said after a moment. She nodded eager for him to continue. "Because I have to apply some logic to this. I can't just leave it up in the air, undefined. So while you're here, we act like this. Like we're together, except we're not really. No-one else, okay? I want you to myself." She nodded again. "Then when you go home eventually you can do as you like and when you come back we can pick up where we left off. Is that agreeable to you?"

"Yeah, that sounds good. And we can re-evaluate in a few months and make any adjustments. But you will need to find a way to tell John that we're together but not together."

"I will?" he asked with a small smirk playing on the corners of his lips.

"Of course. I've already called not me on this one, so I'm afraid the task falls to you. Just tell him after the baby's born. He'll be all happy and tired and care about too many other things to start freaking out."

"Actually, that's not a bad idea."

"I know, sometimes I can actually be quite intelligent outside of a test which involves knowledge not applicable to real life. Go figure."

"How long does it take to have a baby anyway? Are we going to be waiting here for long or is it going to be the maximum of an hour before we can be on our way home?" Serena laughed, shaking her head at him.

"I'm not exactly an expert but I think it's going to be more than an hour. Like, we're probably looking at it taking at least until the morning, if not longer." Sherlock sighed and she kissed his cheek. "I'm going to get a coffee. Do you want anything?" she said, standing up, brushing an imaginary speck of dust off her clothing, running her hands back through her hair, which was now untamed and messy as a result of how little she had slept.

"Tea please. You know how I take it." he replied, and she nodded and went off to find the machine.

Mary, Serena thought as she passed her room and stole a glance in through the crack in the door, looked much better than she did. This was unsettling for her, and so she stopped at the bathroom to brush her hair and apply at least a light coat of make-up. She knew it was unlikely Sherlock would care, but she did. As always she divided her hair in two and pulled both sides round to the front, and brushed each half a hundred times before she flipped it back again and put the brush away. _Vain and OCD. Yeah. He really did have you pegged as soon as he saw you._

She got him his tea, half-tempted for no particular reason, to get his tea deliberately wrong. She thought as she carried it up that this was probably because she didn't want him to realise she remembered these insignificant things about him, like how he liked his tea. She couldn't help picking up on them though; he interested her, and she liked learning about the things she was interested in.

He took his tea from her and smiled gratefully as he took a small sip from the side of the Styrofoam cup. She took her place beside him again, and he put his arm around her again. It only took until she had finished her coffee – which was decaff much to her horror – to begin to feel the exhaustion creep over her. She was asleep on his shoulder within half an hour.

It was morning by the time she awoke, and his head was resting on hers. She smiled and stayed still, not wanting to wake him too. This was done about five minutes later when Marilyn bounded in to the room shouting on them.

Sherlock awoke looking adorably dazed and disorientated, tightening his hold on her, as though she was the only thing keeping him from falling straight off his seat. Serena laughed and propped him back up and looked over to Marilyn who was standing in front of them, hand on her hip impatiently. Sherlock looked up at her and scowled, clearly not happy that she had disturbed his slumber. Serena leaned up and kissed the top of his head softly and rested one hand on his shoulder.

"Has she had the baby then?" Sherlock asked groggily. Serena pressed her lips together firmly to keep from laughing.

_So this is what he's like as soon as he wakes up. It's kind of endearing. I can see myself getting used to this… Woah. Slow down brain. As far as we know this isn't even going to last more than a month. We're not getting used to anything, okay?_

"Not yet. She's not even fully dilated yet, not that you'll want to know about that. They say it might take until this evening, maybe even longer, but it's not because of any complication. It's just taking a little while. They wanted to ask me to ask the two of you to go back to theirs and bring some stuff. And you can go home and change or whatever, Serena, could you bring some stuff for me too? Sherlock still has the keys to their car so the two of you can get back no problem. Anyway, I better get back, for a doctor John is fucking useless in there. It's not even like he has to do the hard part. Bye!" she spoke at about a million miles an hour, and Sherlock and Serena took a moment before, in their rather tired states, they fully grasped what she was saying. Serena nodded first.

"Okay. And Marilyn, I'm really proud of you." Marilyn beamed a bright smile very much an echo of her older sister's identical one.

"Now might not be the right time, but I want to go home to Harry. I want to finish school and be a doctor. I mean I'm fine with blood, I'm almost as clever as you, and it' the first thing that's ever genuinely interested me. Do you think that's a good idea?" Serena nodded enthusiastically, beaming straight back at her little sister.

"I do. Now, get back in there. You're her rock. We always knew John would be useless in real life medical situations." Marilyn laughed and hurried away. Serena stood up, still smiling at the conversation which had transpired. "Oh God, I am so happy she's going back to Harry!" she exclaimed, putting some things she'd had out back in to her bag. "And that she has an actual goal now which isn't getting high or drunk at dome party she's attending where there's no-one she knows. She actually wants a job!"

"That's great, sweetheart." Sherlock sounded like he was beginning to wake up and he stood too, steadying himself for a moment before he took her arm and the two of them left the hospital and walked to John's car.

They went to his house first, and got all the things Mary might want or need, including the little car seat for the baby and items of clothing, including one boys outfit that Mary had bought as a precautionary measure, in case they had predicted the gender wrong. _Sherlock would be happy; then they really could name their child after him, and so would I, because they wouldn't be calling it after me. They really do think far too highly of me. They should name it after someone worthy._

It was only when they got back to Sherlock's flat that they got a little… side-tracked. All it took was for Serena to mention she was going for a shower, and for him to offer to join her before she'd forgotten why they'd gone back in the first place.


	17. Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

It took a lot longer than it should have done for Serena and Sherlock to return to the hospital with all the items they had been instructed to bring. Serena lied expertly to her sister. According to her they'd been in traffic when they realised Sherlock had left John's house keys in the waiting room and the pair had needed to return and fetch them, and then she'd needed to wash her hair and hadn't wanted to go back out before it was dry –So sorry! Marilyn definitely knew that wasn't it, mostly because Serena couldn't stop smiling, still apparently basking in her post orgasmic glow, and the fact that Sherlock refused to remove his arms from around her waist. They were actually acting like a couple. He had to keep bringing himself back to reality, reminding himself that they were not a couple. She was his only while she was here. She didn't want a relationship with him, and he couldn't allow himself to be in one with her only for her to leave him in a few weeks. He always felt abandoned by those who meant the most to him. The most prominent example of this was John now. It wasn't the same of course, but he had abandoned Sherlock for a wife, a child, a real life which didn't just revolve around his best friend. Serena would inevitably do the same. He would not allow himself to get hurt when she did. Sherlock Holmes did not get hung up over girls. Sherlock Holmes simply refused to have a broken heart.

There had been no serious domination either of the times he had fucked Serena, but he could hear her as she got out of the shower, wrapping a large white towel around herself, circling her wrist with her index finger, tracing the red mark that the handcuffs he had used on her had made. 'Tonight, if you will have me, I'd like to submit to you fully. Sir."

'Sir'. It sounded as good coming from her lips as he had known it would from the first day he met and spoke to her, when he had first fantasized about having her call him that in bed. It had been too long since he had dominated anyone properly, and if she was still willing that evening, or whenever the hell they actually managed to get home, he would be more than willing to have Serena in that way.

He hadn't of course said anything back to her. She might be allowing it, but if he was going to then she would not be topping from the bottom. He would call the shots, not her. Sherlock had simply given her a hard smack on her ass and told her to get dressed and be quick about it. She had said nothing more, but she followed instruction well. She seemed to trust him too which would help, and he would remind her that there was always a way out in her safe word if things got too much for her to handle. Serena seemed sure enough of herself that he was sure it wouldn't be a problem.

Once Marilyn had gone back in – and Mary wasn't much closer to giving birth apparently, so there was no need to feel guilty about the morning's escapades – and he realised the waiting room was empty, he decided enough time had passed for him to talk to her about later.

"My hard limits?" she responded when he asked her. "No knives, or blood in general or any bodily fluids other than the normal stuff. And I'm not doing anal. Too many associated health risks, too painful. No penetrative sex without a condom, I'm not risking pregnancy. Other than that, I trust you not to push me too far, and to stop if I safe word."

"That sounds very acceptable. As it's your first proper scene I will not push you too hard or use my own limits as a guideline. I think as well, I will add whipping to your hard limits. And by that I mean a proper whip. You don't realise that it is one because you've never experienced it, but that's not something you will want, I can assure you. It hurts like hell, and unlike something similar like a riding crop you're very unlikely to get any pleasure out of it."

"I think that's probably a good idea." she said with a small nod of agreement.

"You should also be aware that tonight, I will punish disobedience. I will spank you ten times for every infraction that you commit. It is up to me to decide what constitutes one and what does not, and you are not allowed to question any punishment. You may safe word, but if you do this during a punishment then we will not continue, and you will be sent to your own room for the night. You have to trust me during punishments to respect your limits and not push you too far. Punishments are an integral part of my lifestyle, and if you cannot handle them then I will assume that you do not want the pleasurable side either and we will rethink the arrangement. However, I can assure you that you will enjoy the other side of it, and probably find some enjoyment in the punishment too. You just need to be relaxed and open-minded and not scared of me. Apprehensive perhaps, but being scared is not a good thing in these situations, and if you are you must tell me so that I can change that. It is as much about your enjoyment as it is about mine, and though the idea is for you to get pleasure from making me happy, you need to be comfortable doing so. Do you understand everything I have said so far, sweetheart?"

"Yes, sir, I do." He ran his hand lightly over her cheek and curled two fingers under her chin to tilt it up and kissed her softly.

"Good girl."

Serena smiled at him softly, seeing that this was his first and only indication that the topic was closed for now. After a few minutes she asked him if she could read her book, and he allowed her, smirking to himself silently, liking very much that she was already asking his permission for activities which would divert her attention away from him. He sat silently for a while before the voice in his head began to scream _BORED!_ And he was suddenly regretting allowing her to do anything else while he sat there with nothing to do. He actually wanted to talk to her.

"What are you reading now?" She looked up from her book and smiled, perhaps surprised that he was taking an interest now that he knew he didn't have to seduce her or win her over by pretending to be interested.

"The Great Gatsby. It's another really good book. The new movie does not do it justice, the old one barely comes close." she replied, saying more than he had asked for, but he didn't care in the slightest. He loved how passionate she clearly was about her interests and how animated and excitable she became when she spoke about them.

"Tell me something you're bad at." he requested at some point during the day, amongst pieces of conversation and hours spent sleeping, using each other as head rests. She didn't wonder why he was asking, but thought for a moment before she replied.

"I can't work computers. I don't know what it is about them. Harry bought me a laptop for Christmas a couple of years ago and I swear I spent most of the day trying desperately to work out how to switch it off without just holding down the power button." Sherlock laughed, and she shook her head. "Seriously, it was awful because IT was a compulsory Standard in my school and I spent six weeks revising solidly just so I didn't fail it."

"Nice to know you're bad at something I'm not." She pulled a face at him.

"It's the worst thing to be bad at. Computer stuff is like a real skill that you actually need, you can use it to get out of situations and fix stuff or whatever. And what am I able to do instead? I can paint. I can fucking paint. And draw and take pictures, and ooh, I'm good at calligraphy too. None of them will ever be remotely helpful in everyday life."

"Calligraphy?" he asked, trying not to laugh. She nodded miserably.

"Useless, right? Apart from when someone needs wedding invitations made for them, then I'm their favourite person."

"Why did you even bother learning that? It must have been dull."

"I like to learn anything artistic really. And I like making simple thing like writing look pretty, so it seemed like a good way to spend a few rainy days. That's really not the weirdest one of my interests anyway."

"What is then?"

"Oh no, I am not going in to that. You can learn all the weird things about me some other time, when it's less likely to make you rethink our agreement."

"I'm not going to do that. You need to stop worrying that I will. I can safely assure you that for the remainder of your time here our agreement will continue unless you change your mind, in which case I will respect that. I'd rather you didn't of course, because I really rather like you, but it's your choice." Serena smirked softly to herself and ran one hand through his dark curly hair.

"You really rather like me, hmm?"

"Surely that's not news to you, sweetheart?"

"Of course not, I just like you saying it to me. For the record I really rather like you too, Sherlock." He smiled and kissed her softly.

Their conversation continued in this way throughout the day, playful, sweet, a little flirtatious most of the time, very flirtatious at certain points. Again, he had to keep reminding himself that she would not be a permanent fixture in his life. Serena would be fleeting, in a few weeks she would be little more than a memory to him and he would probably be long forgotten to her; she would have moved on to someone worthy of her attention, or back to the fleeting relationships he knew she preferred to engage in.

_She cannot be yours forever. She has a life, a home, friends, all waiting for her when she goes away from you. You have nothing else. You just have her. Do not let her know how much it hurts that she will leave. Let her go when the time comes, and let her forget you if that is what she must do. You can't keep her here. There would be nothing more selfish. It's like Hades keeping Persephone in the underworld. The rest of the world has desperate need of her light too. Stop thinking about this though, and try to enjoy the time you have here with her. It will not last long if you wither it away on wishing she could stay longer. Make every second you have with her count._

It took until midnight, but Mary did have her baby. Sherlock and Serena had spent most of the day sleeping, and were almost as relieved as Mary when they heard the news that it had finally been born. It was born precisely two minutes after midnight. Mary, who had been in labour for over thirty hours, was in a surprisingly good mood when Serena and Sherlock were summoned in by Marilyn. She was lying on her bed with large bags under her eyes, and John and Marilyn looked exhausted too. Mary said she was glad Marilyn had been there. John had freaked out several times, and had a small but painful looking red handprint across his cheek from where the young girl had slapped him – no less than three times, she told them proudly – to get him to snap out of it.

The baby was indeed a girl. Her feathery tufts of hair were dark blonde like both her parents and her big eyes were a grey tinted with blue like her father's. Her mother had her held close to her, and was smiling proudly, occasionally breaking eye contact with the others in the room to kiss the top of her child's head.

"Serena, if it's okay with you, because of everything she's done for me, I'd like to call her after Marilyn. We'll call the next girl after you." Mary said softly. Serena smiled and nodded.

"Of course, I think that's a much better idea. Marilyn is much more deserving of being this child's namesake." Marilyn beamed and hugged Mary gently, careful not to disturb the now sleeping baby. "So, is giving birth as awful as I imagine it would be?" Mary winced and nodded and Serena pulled a face.

"Yeah, it's awful. I had all the drugs they could legally give me and I still can't imagine anything being more painful. Still, it's true what they say, I remember how much it hurt, but I don't mind. I got my baby, or baby, and she's beautiful. She was worth every single second of the pain I went through to bring her in to this world. Although really, she could have hurried up about it, because I was in here hours." Mary grinned and the others all laughed softly, each of them worried about making too much noise, even Sherlock, because they did not want to wake her child.

Sherlock and Serena stayed for about half an hour before Mary and John suggested that they should go home and come back to see them the next morning. Both were silently relieved about this; neither was tired but both were desperate to go back home. They were both also extremely glad when Marilyn said she would stay with Mary, and also that she would spend as long as Mary needed her sleeping on her sofa and move out of Sherlock's flat. Serena was glad she was being of help while she was there.

"We'll be back in the morning to see all of you again." Serena assured them as she was being hurried out of the room by Sherlock who quickly shut the door behind them. "Okay, first of all that was rude, no matter how badly you want to get home, and second of all what happened to telling my uncle about the whole us thing while he was still tired and happy that he had a baby?" Serena said, sighing softly, and taking his hand to walk down to the car park. As none of the others were going to need to leave that night they were going to take John's car back to the flat and then come back at some point the next day to see them again and hand the car over to them.

"Serena, you promised we'd be out of there by nine. It is now half past twelve. For the past four hours I have barely been able to think about anything other than you naked, how was I supposed to remember that?"

"It's not my fault that she took so long to have the baby." Serena said with a small laugh. "And maybe I'm too tired to fuck you tonight and you'll have to wait until the morning." He stopped walking and she laughed again seeing how genuinely distraught he looked. "Please, like I'd do that. I've been imagining you naked for the past five hours. And we spent the whole day sleeping, so was there really a question of me being too tired?" He kissed her quickly and then ushered her in to the car.

"So are you disappointed that they didn't decide to name their baby after you in the end?" he asked her as he drove, trying to keep his mind on something other than the merciless fuck he was planning to engage her in. She saw straight through his efforts of course, but decided to humour him, if only because she wanted to keep her mind off it too.

"No, of course not." she replied, shaking her head. "I didn't really feel like I deserved it anyway, and Marilyn at least did something that warranted their naming the child after her by helping Mary through the birth. I never could have done that. I'm so squeamish."

"She's definitely not. She was amazing at the crime scene. I've seen experienced police officers who could handle less than her."

"Marilyn was always the tougher of the two of us. It's ridiculous; I'm two years older than her and yet instead of me looking after her she looked after me. Apart from when Carlie got violent, it was always like that. I had always wanted to protect her but I was secretly glad that the need never arose because it meant that she was okay and happy. It broke my heart when I had to start looking after her, but I knew I had to. I couldn't just stand by and let any of that happen to her."

"I think Mycroft would have done the same for me, but we had good parents. God knows why we're both such fuck ups because they did nothing wrong. It's the way we are I guess, nature over nurture."

"You are not a fuck up, Sherlock, and neither is your brother. You're just different to other people, you think differently. It's not your fault, and it's not a bad thing. No-one else has ever interested me the way you do, and I'm not sure they ever will. You caught my attention because you're not like the rest of the world."


	18. Eighteen

EIGHTEEN

Serena wondered if he realised what she meant when she told him he wasn't like the rest of the world. He had told her he was not going to make some premature declaration of love, and she had resolved not to either, but try as she might to convince herself that what she felt for Sherlock wasn't love yet, she couldn't quite push it from her mind. 'I love you' seemed to be on the tip of her tongue every time she spoke to him. _Okay, let's make a deal, no matter how early he says it, you can say it back, but do not be the crazy, clingy not even a proper girlfriend who say it after two seconds of not even a real relationship. Is it crazy that I wish this was a real relationship even though I'm going home? I wonder if he does too. Oh God, now we're back to the insane second guessing. Just let this run its course, Serena. If it's supposed to be anything else, you'll figure it out. Leave it for now, shut off the stupid voice inside your head and enjoy some inevitably amazing sex._

That was by far the best piece of advice she ever had given, or ever would in fact give, herself in her life.

She cringed at every romantic song on the radio, which she had put on to try and distract herself from her own internal monologue. It wasn't working. _Chances are he didn't even infer what you had meant. I mean, he just kissed you and thanked you. Surely he would have said something else if he had realised, right? This is Sherlock Holmes after all, it's not like he's famous for keeping his mouth shut._

When they pulled up outside she got out, not saying anything, and walked towards the building. He caught her hand and kissed her softly and she smiled and wound her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder when he released her lips.

"When we go inside, I'll act differently. You will not touch me without my permission, and you will follow instruction, or you will be punished, do you understand, Serena?" She nodded sharply.

"Yes, sir." He dropped her hand and motioned for her to walk in before him. _Hmm, I hope he's taking advantage of the view of my ass up the stairs. These are damn good jeans and he'd better appreciate that. Okay Serena, do not screw this up. Remember how compliant you were with him a few days ago? That's not going to cut it. You have to be picture perfect, submissive, prove to him you can do this, that you will do this for him. That you would do anything for him because he's worth it, and if either of us is unworthy, it's you, not him._

She stopped in front of his door and he opened it for her, and again gestured for her to go in first. She walked in, just enough so he could come in behind her, and was about to ask how he would like her when he spoke.

"As before, Serena, your safe word is kalopsia, and you will use this as and when you deem necessary, and I will stop immediately and you will return to your own room for the night. You will also simply use the word 'yellow' to notify me when you are about to reach your limits, and we will not stop, but I will move on to something different. Do you understand?" She nodded again. "Excellent. Now please, go to my room and strip. Kneel on the floor facing away from the door. I will be in there in exactly ten minutes."

Without another word she walked quickly to his room and did as he had asked. At some point he must have tidied up in there, because it was impeccable again. She took off her clothes and folded them and left them on the chair in the corner of them room rather than scattered all over his floor. She knelt as he had told her to. The entire flat was silent as far as she could tell, so quiet that she could hear the ticking of the clock through in the kitchen. She bit down softly on her lip as she waited. The anticipation was excruciating, and, she realised, a huge turn on for her. She could feel the wetness between her thighs, and tried not to shift uncomfortably on the spot. She had no idea of the time now, but surely it must have been ten minutes? She was unwilling to move even if it wasn't, just in case he came in early.

Eventually, she heard footsteps and froze even more somehow, keeping her eyes fixed on the wall as she heard the door open and listened to his footsteps across the floor. She wasn't nervous, she realised, she was excited, pent up from the anticipation. He stood behind her for a few moments, and she did not move or indicate at all that she realised he was there until he knelt to the side of her and kissed her neck softly, and she tilted her head slightly. She didn't moan or make any other sound. He hadn't given her permission for that.

He moved away and stood in front of her. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the spot they head been, although the wall was now replaced with his legs. Apart from his shoes and socks he was still fully dressed. He walked around her, tracing over her back and collarbone with one cold finger. _Hold position, Serena._ She could feel his eyes on her as he walked slowly, as though she was property that he was surveying. _That's all you are tonight._

"Look at me, Serena."

His voice cut through the silence and she obeyed immediately. It wasn't an action that she felt she had any control over. It felt more like a reflex than a conscious decision. She looked up straight in to his eyes, barely even blinking. His voice when he spoke was clear and cold, utterly emotionless, definitely dominating, and his tone was one to be obeyed, not questioned. He was completely different like this. Before she had only got glimpse of it, but this was him, unabridged, completely in his element.

And she definitely liked it.

"Serena, stand up and undress me now." She kept expecting him to follow any sentence with sweetheart, but of course he wouldn't. Terms of endearment would be completely out of place now.

Getting to her feet swiftly and for once managing not to fall over herself as she did she stood for only a moment before she started to take his shirt off. She didn't go deliberately slowly, but nor did she hurry, she felt like either would have been wrong. She took his shirt off first and folded it with her own clothes and then unbuckled his trousers. He stepped out of them and she did the same. She went to take off his underwear but he shook his head, so she stopped and stood in front of him again. He immediately leant down and kissed her roughly, arms snaking around her waist, and she kissed him back immediately, pressing herself close to him. He lifted her up and pressed her back against the wall, and she locked her legs around his waist and moaned softly as she felt his hardness pressing against her. She wanted the layer of fabric between them gone.

After a while he reluctantly released her from the kiss and lifted her again and lay her down on the bed. He knelt between her legs and bent over to kiss her neck again. He sucked on it and bit softly on her collarbone, and she moaned loudly and involuntarily. As soon as she made a sound he descended down her body, kissing over the tops of her breasts, sucking gently on the nipple of one and working the other with his hand. He waited until her soft moans had increased in volume before he stopped, kissing down her stomach, brushing past where she wanted him most in favour of tantalisingly slowly kissing his way up her thigh.

He drew one finger slowly across her slit before he quickly moved it away again. She whimpered softly. He ignored her soft protests and simply paused a few seconds before he did the same again.

_He wants you to beg, Serena._

The thought crossed her mind, and she was about to give in and beg when she wondered if speaking would earn her a punishment. She wasn't going to walk in to that unless she had to. She let it continue for a while longer, hoping he would relent, but of course he didn't. _Well, you're already in over your head, you may as well beg and risk it. At least either way this torture will stop._

"Oh God, sir, please…" She had spoken before she had any more time to think about it, adding the 'sir' for good measure, and a brief glance down told her he wasn't going to punish her. That had been what he wanted, verbal conformation that she knew he was in charge and she and her pleasure was at his mercy.

He quickly took his finger away and instead dipped his head between her legs, beginning the merciless assault of her clit with his tongue, flicking over it, pressing down on it, circling it. He placed one of her legs over his shoulder, and by the time he slid his finger in to her she was already holding back screams of pleasure, and she cried out loudly when he added a second, pumping them in and out of her. He put his lips around her clit and sucked softly. She knew she wouldn't last long.

"I – Ah fuck – Sher – Sir – I'm so close!" Her voice was husky and thick with desire.

He stopped everything, took his fingers out of her and released her from his mouth. She whined loudly. _Damn, I should have just come anyway. The whole punishment thing can't be worse than this, can it? _She shifted uncomfortably as her need for release built even more.

He kissed her softly on the lips and she could taste herself on his tongue. Their kiss deepened and became more passionate quickly. She could feel his erection pressing against her. _Relax; clearly he wants you even more than you want him now. He's not going to make you wait that long, right? Damn, I should have put 'waiting for orgasm' on the list of not allowed things. This is cruel._

Quickly he stopped kissing her and got off the bed. She lay still, aware that he would not want her to move, but she couldn't help letting her eyes flit over, watching as he finally removed his underwear and out on a condom. He came back over and tied her hands together but not to the bed this time, instead ducking through the gap between her arms. Her legs were still spread willingly, and without warning he kissed her roughly and pushed himself inside her. She cried out loudly against his lips.

"Mine." he growled as he delved deep inside her.

"Yes, yours…" her voice was softer now than it had been before, less urgent, but her words seemed to spurt him on as he pounded in and out of her with a driving force. She had never liked men to be gentle with her in bed but they always had for fear of hurting her. Sherlock was too lost in his own desire to worry, and she liked that.

Serena could feel the urgency of his own orgasm building as hers did. He throbbed as he plunged in to her, causing her to cry out in pleasure every time he did. She couldn't last much longer, but she swore if he tried to stop her from coming she would call the whole thing off and finish herself in favour of waiting, although she had to admit the waiting before made it even more intense now.

"Come for me now, sweetheart."

It didn't entirely register with her what he had said, but the recognition of his term of endearment for her was what threw her over the edge, and she cried out his name. She swore she was seeing stars with the intensity of her orgasm. He quickly followed, pounding in to her one last time before he went over after her, groaning her name as he did.

After a moment he pulled out of her, removed her still tied arms from around him and threw the condom in the trash. He untied her hands swiftly before he put his arms around her and she did the same, softly burying her head in his chest and tangling their legs together.

_Fuck it if we're letting this one go. You have had enough men to know that ones who are that good in bed do not come along ever. We're going to have to come up with some kind of legitimate way for you to stay here instead of going home. Make him think it's his idea and then stay forever and let the amazing sex continue. I don't even have the willpower to care if he will ever want anything romantic from me or not. I just can't go home and willingly abandon this, can I? What a waste of a perfectly good guy._

"Thank you for that. You really are incredible." he said to her quietly. She smiled and leant up to kiss him for a few moments.

"Can we please do that again? Maybe not tonight because lack of sleep and vigorous sex has left me entirely exhausted, but soon? Because I enjoyed that even more than I thought I would do when I agreed to it."

"Of course, I'd be happy to oblige. You make a surprisingly good submissive for someone who has never entered in to anything like that before, and who until now very long ago had no interest in doing so."

"Well I wanted to please you. To show you how much I was willing to do for you. Like I said before, I know this isn't something you can just turn off. And I liked it."

"Do you even realise how ridiculously perfect you are, Serena? You are beautiful, intelligent, and incredibly captivating for no reason that can be expressed in words, and for some reason you are not only interested in me, but interested enough that even when you found out about this you were willing not just to continue to attempt some kind of relationship with me, but allow me to indulge in it with you."

"I'm far from perfect Sherlock, but yeah, I am pretty awesome. Feel free to buy me as many gifts as you like to thank me for it." He chuckled and kissed the top of her head.

"Hmm, maybe I'll start with flowers. I've never bought anyone flowers before."

"That's fine by me as long as you don't buy me roses." It wasn't a completely unreasonable dislike that she held for the flower. She remembered when Carlie had been particularly violent she would bring Harry home roses after work, sometimes red, usually whichever colour she decided was the prettiest that day. When Sherlock asked her why not she willingly explained all of this, and he nodded understandingly, brushing his hand gently back and forth through her long hair.

"No roses. I promise I'll remember that. Anything else you don't like?"

_Well I have a particular aversion to diamonds, but it might seem a little presumptuous of me to say so. I'll just leave it for now._

"Nothing I hate quite so strongly, nothing else really brings up the same sorts of memories for me. I mean, it was constant, every time it happened the day after there would be roses filling our house. The sickly sweet smell used to make me feel so ill… I remember once there were so many I actually arranged to stay with a friend for a week or so while they wilted and the smell of them faded. But you know I was kidding right, I don't actually expect anything from you. Not even flowers."

"I don't care if you expect it or not, at the very least I want to get you flowers. Isn't that what people do in these relationship things? Buy pointless gifts to show their affection?" She had to laugh. _At least he's trying. Sort of._

"How would I know? I've had about as much experience of them as you have. But yes, as far as I know flowers are a traditional gift of choice, and one that won't make me want to throw up it's so sweet." He chuckled. "So, we're admitting that this is a relationship of sorts now?" He nodded.

"Of course we are." _Maybe now he's willing to admit it's somewhat serious he'll want me to stay with him more._


	19. Nineteen

NINETEEN

"I passed Serena on the stairs."

Sherlock had woken up with Serena still curled into him. With her sleeping next to him he had been confused for a few moments, convinced he must have dreamt the whole encounter. She had woken up not long after him, and it was only then that he allowed himself to be convinced it was real. He had worried momentarily that she might, despite all of the lovely thing she had said to him the night before, regret sleeping with him in the way that she had done, regret agreeing to their relationship. She hadn't, of course. She had simply kissed him and gone in to the kitchen to make them both tea which they had drunk in bed together. He lay with his head in her lap and she had played with his hair as she read. He'd never seen her with her glasses on before, and she only put them on because his room was still fairly dark, but he definitely liked her like that.

It had been very reluctantly that she had told him she needed to go to the hospital to visit her uncle and her new cousin. Sherlock had told her that he wanted to spend a little time on his own going over the details of the case he and Marilyn were working and that he would meet her there in a couple of hours.

And of course just after she had left was when his older brother chose to make an appearance in his flat.

"Did you?" Sherlock replied to him, hands steepled under his chin, not paying full attention to what he was saying or doing. "And this is important why?" He looked up at his brother who was wearing an expression of both disdain and amusement.

"I just thought it was amusing she was leaving without you." Mycroft said. Sherlock simply sighed; it was very clear to him that his brother was trying to get some kind of rise out of him, and for once he was in far too much of a good mood to retaliate. "Are you not also interested in the wellbeing of John's child?" Of course Mycroft would know that Mary had given birth; he probably had John's house bugged the same way he had Sherlock's flat monitored before he had found the bugs and disposed of them.

"Later. I'll go later. For now I just wanted to think about the case. Was there something you wanted or are you just here to distract me?"

"For a while now Sherlock there has been something I have wanted to tell you. It's not within the realms of conversation that we normally have, and for a while I did wonder if perhaps it might be… fleeting, and I could avoid it all together, but nonetheless here we are." Sherlock tried not to look too interested in what he could have to say, although he was. He did always like to have new information about Mycroft that he could potentially use later. Sherlock raised his eyebrows at him, silently telling him to continue. "I've been seeing someone for a few months now Sherlock. I wasn't going to tell you, but it's become a little more serious recently and I felt it was something I should share with you. I do believe it's a custom of sorts for families to talk about their romantic interests, and after all, I do know about Serena, so it is only fair you know about my… partner."

"So who is she?" Sherlock asked, seeing that he wasn't going to offer up any more information without being prompted to do so. Mycroft visibly winced at his words, and Sherlock studied him carefully. _How on earth have I missed this for enough time that they've decided to move in together and I haven't noticed?_

"He, Sherlock. Don't tell me you missed that one too?"

_Well, I can't pretend that was ever off the cards, although I did assume it would have come up before now. Good for him admitting to it now though, not that I'll be the one throwing the coming out party. Just act normal, there's no reason not to._

"He, I apologise. Who is he?"

"You know him actually. It was a large part of the reason we were reluctant to tell you about it at first, but we'd rather you found out from us than a third party."

"Are you going to tell me who it is or not?" he asked impatiently.

"Gregory Lestrade."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. _Why didn't I pick up on that at the police station? There must have been a few tells at least, sideways looks, accidental touches, anything. It must have been her – Serena - she must have distracted me from picking up on it exactly how she's been distracting me since she got here. And they were right under my nose the entire time; he must be delighted that I've proved my stupidity by not noticing this._

"You and Lestrade?"

"Yes, Sherlock, please do try and keep up. This conversation really is proving even more tedious than I thought it would. I should have made him come here and tell you himself; it was his idea to tell you in the first place. I did say you wouldn't care, but he was quite insistent that we shouldn't keep it from you any longer."

"Well, I am very glad that you've found your goldfish." Mycroft chuckled, sadistic smile barely reaching his cold eyes. _How on earth can Lestrade bear being with someone like him? He must be warmer with him, like I am with Serena._

"And what about you? Have you found yours?" Was Mycroft actually asking him about how permanent Serena was going to be in his life?

"We'll see. Now, would you like a cup of tea before you leave? You really can't have too busy a morning if you already took precious time out of it to come and tell me about your romantic conquests."

"Tea would be wonderful, thank you. As long as I'm not keeping you from your goldfish, that is."

"I'm more worried about keeping you from yours. Clearly if you're moving in together this is the goldfish for you Mycroft. I just hope you know how often it requires feeding." he said with a bright smile met by a scowl from his brother. Sherlock got up and instead of walking to the kitchen went to his front door and opened it wide. "Mrs Hudson! Mycroft and I require tea!"

He could hear grumbles of 'not your housekeeper' from downstairs, but they both knew that his landlady would be up soon with tea for them both, and satisfied with this Sherlock sat back in his chair.

"And I just hope you won't be too sad when yours swims away in a few weeks and leaves you in need of a new goldfish."

Sherlock couldn't imagine that Serena would be too happy about them comparing her to a fish with a three second memory; after all this was a girl who had been accepted in to the two most prestigious universities in the country, and she was decidedly less of a goldfish than Lestrade was if they were going on intelligence alone, and in his opinion she was a far more interesting person. Sherlock couldn't imagine that Lestrade and his brother had anything in common; Mycroft liked opera and fine wines, and Lestrade only cared about sports and reasonably priced beer. Mind, he and Serena were hardly similar, but they had a few interests in common, more than Mycroft and Lestrade at least. She loved history he knew, favouring the Tudor period as she had told him when they were at the museum, and she had said that both her placements at university were on Chemistry courses which he had always enjoyed, and he could easily learn more about art and read a few of her favourite books. He might not be able to sit through her favourite films in one go but he could watch them in twenty minute bursts and pretend to enjoy them. Okay, perhaps they didn't have a lot in common, but it was still more than Mycroft and 'Gregory' (and Mycroft really needed to learn his name, because Sherlock was sure it was Gordon).

"I'm not sure Serena really counts as one of the goldfish."

"Of course not. So then you won't be able to replace her with another goldfish and quickly move on? How upsetting for you. And she can just move on to a fellow goldfish – or rather whatever type of fish you feel she constitutes; which would you prefer I referred to her as in future? – and forget all about you."

"Well, I believe you referred to her as 'Aphrodite' last time, so you could continue with that instead of a type of fish. I should have realised the pleasant conversation wouldn't last long."

"How tedious it would be if it did. So what will you do when she inevitably leaves you and goes back to her nice normal Sherlock free life? Something tells me you're planning on being dull and pining over her for a while."

"Well, put it this way, how would you feel if it was Lestrade leaving?"

"Firstly, I would never have been so careless to engage in a relationship that I knew was going to end so quickly, or with someone who lived further away than twenty minutes from my own home. Secondly, it is rather different when it comes to Gregory and I."

"How so?"

"Well, Sherlock, we are in a real relationship, and you are simply, how do the Americans put it? Ah yes – playing house. You are playing house with this girl, pretending that what you have is real, and simply setting yourselves up to have the illusion shattered when she decides she has had enough of living with a moody genius and goes back to her normal life more than willingly in a few weeks. It would be best for both of you if you just cut all your ties now. Send her to live with John for the remainder of her time here."

"I could just ask her to stay."

"But Sherlock, why on earth would she want to stay with you? Of course it's fine for a few weeks, but has she given you any reason to think she would want anything more than that from you?" He thought about it. He had told her before that he was dreading her leaving and she had brushed it off saying she would be back soon and for him not to worry about that now. It was not her saying how much she wanted to stay or even that she did at all, merely that if and when she did return they could pick up where they left off. Mycroft had been wrong last time, but this time he was voicing the same concern as Sherlock had. After all, he had always thought Serena must be interested in him, but she had thus far done nothing to indicate she wanted it to be more than a fling. Sure in bed she had teased him when he had called it a relationship and she had not objected, but there were a lot of levels to that word. There was no reason for him to think she did or ever would want something as serious as he wanted from her.

Mrs Hudson then came in with the tea, and Sherlock was thankful for this as it gave him a few moments to decide what to say in reply to his brother.

"Nothing at all. In fact she probably doesn't." Mycroft smiled triumphantly before he took a sip from the cup in front of him. Sherlock did the same before continuing; both of them liked their tea scalding hot when they drank it. "But I can ask her to stay anyway. Somehow her rejection seems a better option than just letting her leave without even discussing the possibility of her leaving."

"You are setting yourself up for heartbreak, brother."

"Mycroft, neither of us have hearts to break."

"Perhaps I do now. I would be rather distraught if my goldfish suddenly decided to leave me, not that he ever would of course. And so you're not in love with this girl then? You simply want her to stay because you like the idea of having another pretty thing to show off to the people who aren't impressed by the heads in the fridge or the skull on the mantelpiece?"

"I don't know Mycroft. All your questions are giving me a headache. Surely you cannot be this interested. You never have been before."

"There was never a real, or at least what you thought was real, relationship for me to be interested in before, was there, so I'm enjoying it while I have the chance. I do so enjoy making you second guess yourself."

"It's not entirely pleasant to be on the other end, but who am I to complain when I get to spend an hour or so of quality time with my charming elder brother?"

"When you put it like that it seems like rather a waste of an otherwise perfectly nice morning."

"Yes, I agree with you there. But we do so rarely spend time together anymore; we may as well pretend to enjoy it while we're here and then vow never to do so again." Mycroft actually had to suppress a laugh, and he nodded at his younger brother.

"Until you get a new goldfish, then we can discuss her in the same way."

"I am already looking forward to it."

Their tea was finished mostly in silence with the occasional comment from one to the other on their choice of goldfish. Sherlock still felt he was more justified in calling Lestrade a goldfish than he was in calling Serena one; after all, Serena was more intelligent, and besides, he actually knew Lestrade, whereas Mycroft had only met Serena twice and could therefore not form a full opinion of her.

Mycroft left about an hour after he had arrived and Sherlock saw him out, deciding that he should also leave and join the others at the hospital to see John's new child. He really had very little interest in children, but apparently it was the expected thing for him to do. John had already told him that he would be a god-father to this child, and apparently one of the duties of this entailed spending ridiculous amounts of time in the hospital both before and after the birth of the child and pretending he wouldn't rather be elsewhere. Serena had already taken John's car back with her, so he had to hail a taxi and take that there instead. He was relieved, he could drive of course but he didn't like it. It was hard to concentrate on the road when his eidetic memory was flashing with pictures of accidents he had seen before both really and on the television. He especially didn't like it when there were other people in the car with him, like there had been last night. He didn't want to be responsible if anything happened to them.

When he arrived in the hospital he went straight up to Mary's room, and immediately noticed that Serena was not there, and nor was Marilyn.

"Hello, I hope you are doing well Mary, your child is very lovely, now, where is Serena?" Mary and John shook their heads, smiling brightly at each other.

"Serena passed a man who had been stabbed on her way in. He was bleeding quite profusely, and she fainted and never made it to our room. Marilyn was down there luckily, and she's with her. They're just checking she didn't hurt her head or anything; she'll be fine Sherlock." Mary assured him, although he was concerned anyway, her reassuring words doing very little to stop him from worrying. "But honestly, I'm glad it was Marilyn there with us when I went in to labour, I'm not sure she would have been very helpful. For someone who did so well in her Biology exams she does not deal well with blood." Mary smiled when she saw him still looking worried. "She's down in one of the examination rooms, you can go and find her, you can hold the baby and tell me how pretty she is later."

Nodding, thankful to her, Sherlock left the room and went to look for her.

* * *

You're getting a second chapter tonight mostly because I'll be away for a couple of days and I might not be able to update for a few days but also because I wanted to write the Sherlock and Mycroft scene and kind of got carried away. Oops. As usual thanks for the continued reading and support!

Just as a general update, I plan on finishing this story soon (I know, it's crazy how fast I've powered through this but hey, I'm not complaining about having been inspired for once)- somewhere between 25 and 30 chapters, but have no fear, I have a second and a third book mapped out which I'll pretty much start as soon as I finish this one. The end of this book will not be where the prologue started, I plan for that particular event to happen about halfway through the third book. Just something for you all to look forward to...


	20. Twenty

I know this has been on hiatus for a while, but Uni has been crazy recently and I have only recently gotten over my writers block and had time to write it. I now have two weeks off, so between studying I hope to finish this book and possibly start the next one. For anyone who hates me because they've been waiting ages, I know, I'm an awful person, don't hate me. I promise never to take such a long break again.

Love you all, please give me a follow, favourite or review

Love, Rachel x

* * *

TWENTY

"Sherlock, stop fussing over her, she's fine, the doctor said as much, so please leave the lovey-dovey stuff outside this room, or at least warn me next time so I can have a bucket handy to hurl in to." Serena laughed and shook her head at her petite little sister, who was standing impatiently in the room next to Sherlock with one hand on her hip. Serena sat on the edge of the bed holding an ice pack to the relatively small bump on the top of her head, waiting for the doctor to come back with some painkillers for her head. It hurt like hell but it wasn't anything serious. _It serves you right for looking over at the guy on the stretcher when you knew it was going to be bad. I mean, you are in a hospital, there was obviously going to be blood somewhere in the building, right?_

"Marilyn, all he did was kiss me, it's not that bad." she sounded amused and slightly weak at the same time. Her head was still spinning a little.

"It is definitely that bad! You could have at least waited until I was out of the room before you let him shove his tongue down your throat." Serena laughed and held her head in her hands exasperatedly.

"No Marilyn, we're waiting for you to go out of the room before we start tearing each other's clothes off." The younger girl pulled a horrified face, and Serena laughed again.

"And suddenly the impromptu make-out scene seems a lot more acceptable. Please don't ever do that in front of me unless you want me to never speak to you again for the rest of time. That's not even an exaggeration. Anyway, are you going to be done here soon? It's just that I think Mary is more deserving of my time and medical attention than you are, being as she did just have a baby and you didn't."

"You can go back up there if you like. You've sat with me for long enough now, and besides, I have Sherlock here to look after me." Marilyn nodded and kissed her cheek, careful not to be too abrupt with her for fear of hurting her again, and ran out of the room. Serena let out an audible sigh; she loved her sister, of course she did, but an hour and a half spent with Marilyn and no-one else was borderline unbearable. She had been ridiculously happy when Sherlock came in, not just because she wanted him there with her but because it was someone else who had to deal with Marilyn and who could share the burden of her general insanity. Sherlock was actually very good with her, more patient that she had ever imagined he would be with someone so brash and loud.

The doctor came back in with her painkillers, and as soon as she had taken them she was discharged and the pair decided to slowly make their way back to the hospital room.

"So Mycroft came to see me this morning." Sherlock said as they walked slowly together. He had taken her hand without even thinking about it and she was walking as close to him as she could without tripping up and hitting her head all over again – it was now a genuine fear for her that this would happen and she would look like even more of an idiot than she already did, what with fainting at admittedly quite a lot of blood.

"I know, I saw him on the stairs. He very bluntly asked me if we'd slept together but I just kept walking and told him to ask you because I wasn't going to get involved."

"Yes, we talked about our respective relationships for quite a while actually. It was quite odd; I'm not used to pleasant conversation with him. Out of interest did you know that apparently he's moving in with Lestrade?" She nodded, then paused and shook her head and frowned softly.

"Well, yes I knew that they were together, but neither mentioned to me that they were planning on moving in together. I think it's quite sweet that they've both found someone though and they're quite sweet together." _Or so I thought before I walked in on them in Greg's office… Let's not think about that ridiculously mentally scarring incident again though, I only just recovered._

"And you didn't tell me? I could have done with some warning."

"I'm sorry, but I didn't think it was my place to tell you about them, and Greg basically begged me not to. And it must have been a nice little surprise, right?" she said, laughing, feeling a little bad about having given him no warning.

"Do me a favour next time and tell me anyway. I looked like a complete idiot sitting there asking him what the name of the girl he was dating was." Serena cringed.

"Now, why would you do that? Seriously, the world's only consulting detective can't tell that his own brother's gay? More to the point, why had you never thought to ask him before today?" she wondered, shaking her head at him.

"Why would my brother's love life be of any interest to me?"

"Because he's your brother, of course. Don't you care who the one person in his life who's making him happy is?" Sherlock shook his head and she rolled her eyes. "I suppose he just thought that you had a right to know. I mean if nothing else Greg is your friend and they probably wanted you to know before they decided to take another big step like marriage and you felt bad for not noticing and for them not having told you before." Sherlock, not wanting to admit that she was right, she guessed, simply huffed and picked up on the more insignificant part of what she was saying.

"As though my brother would ever get married to him, or get married to anyone at all for that matter. He'll get bored with his dull little goldfish sooner or later." Her eyebrows quirked in amusement.

"Goldfish?"

"Other people."

"And am I one of these goldfish?" she asked, slightly coldly. "Sine, you know, I am technically another person and not one of… Whatever you and your brother consider yourselves to be that we all aren't."

"Freaks." Serena winced.

"Please don't call yourself that."

"Why? Everyone else thinks it. I may as well say it and agree with them."

"Does Mycroft do the same? I mean, the two of you are very similar. Obviously you're less… Mycroft-y, but still. I can't imagine he would ever say something like that." _He seems far too up himself to admit any flaw in character, or anything about himself really, other than his own omnipotence. But Sherlock's far more insecure than Mycroft clearly._

"Of course he wouldn't, as if he would ever admit he cared what other people thought anyway. Nor do I, of course, but I may as well agree with them. I am a freak"

"You're not a freak, Sherlock, stop saying you are."

Her tone was cold, and it was quite clear that she wasn't going to indulge his self-pity any further. Serena did not deal well with emotion, and over the last few days she had entered in to more than her fair share of it. She could see that any attempt to make Sherlock see what she did when she looked at him was going to be futile. Clearly there were years of emotional baggage there and heaven knew she was utterly the wrong person to deal with it. It was only when she looked at him and saw how distant he had become that she realised it wasn't something she should be trying to avoid. He was clearly as inept as her when it came to expressing emotion, yet when she had unloaded all her emotional baggage on him, he had listened, understood, and accepted.

_If you have any chance of him wanting you to stick around more than a few weeks, you have to be as supportive with him as he is with you. I don't care how emotionally inept you are. Fix this now._

She stopped walking and turned to face him. He wouldn't meet her eyes. _You are such a fuck up, Serena. _She placed one hand gently on his cheek, stroking softly with her thumb. As soon as he looked at her she kissed him softly.

"You are not a freak." Her tone was much softer, each word punctuated by a small pause. "Not to me. Or anyone else who matters." _Does that sound presumptuous? Shh. Now is not the time to start second guessing everything again. _"Normal people are dull. They don't hold my interest, not in the relationship sort of way at least. You've managed to. All those thing that make you different…" _They're what I love about you. Because I do love you. I really do, and I wish you'd see that so I didn't have to keep forcing myself not to say it. _"I think they're amazing. I think you're amazing. Now let me go back to being my normal cold-hearted self before John and Mary figure out I'm being nice to you and therefore that we're sort of a couple before you have a chance to break the news gently to them." He nodded and kissed her again softly before he took her hand again.

_See? That wasn't so hard. Now hopefully we're nearly at the room otherwise this walk is going to be awkward._

"You're not cold-hearted, Serena." She looked up at him, surprised he had spoken. "You don't think before you speak sometimes, but you're not a bad person. You're kind and sweet. And if you want me to stop thinking the worst of myself then you have to do the same."

"I don't do that."

"Yes you do. You're convinced you're an awful person. You wouldn't let John and Mary name their child after you."

"Hey, they chose to name her after Marilyn."

"But you didn't want them to, and they sensed the discomfort it caused you that they were going to, so they decided that. It was probably pure convenience for them that your sister was helpful, despite her self-proclaimed dislike of children." Serena really had nothing to say to that. _It's probably true, not that I'm going to admit that Sherlock's right about it. John and Mary were adamant that they would name their daughter for me, and I was convinced that I wasn't a good enough person for that. At least Marilyn has done something for them which warrants them doing it._

Before she could tell him in no uncertain terms to shut up, they reached the door to John and Mary's room. A look of mutual understanding that nothing discussed on their own was to be brought in there passed between them, and she opened the door and walked in quickly, bright and fake smile already poised on her face.

What Sherlock said got to her a lot more than she let on. He had the ability to pick up on things other people didn't, but really only because he was paying attention. She wondered why he paid so much attention to other people when they clearly didn't matter to him. If they did then whatever he deduced he would keep to himself. _Maybe he tries to impress people because he has nothing else. Or maybe it's just so he doesn't have to think about himself, ever, to get out of his own head. I wonder if that's why he's a dominant too. Does he think it's easier to take it out on someone else rather than on himself? _Serena realised it was something she'd have to ask if she wanted to know the answer, but it wasn't a good time. Of course, she wasn't entirely sure what a good time would be.

_Emotions suck. I wish I was better at this for him._

Hello's were exchanged quickly with everyone in the room and Serena endeavoured to put everything out of her mind. She avoided, she hoped without seeming rude or uncaring, holding the baby. She had to smile though when the child was eventually passed to Sherlock. He looked oddly at ease with her. John and Marilyn were talking animatedly about something she didn't care about, Mary gently teasing Sherlock about what a good Uncle he would make to the child. Serena felt odd and out of place. Her mind was still reeling, and unlike her sister, who seemed a lot more comfortable around the baby than Serena had expected she would be. She herself on the other hand was a little daunted. Serena had always assumed she would be good around children, though currently she had no desire to have any of her own. But she hadn't had cousins growing up and could barely remember Marilyn as a baby. She was terrified if they entrusted her with even something as simple as holding the baby she would get it wrong.

"Serena." She heard her voice said quietly and looked at Sherlock. "It's easy. And if you drop her, I'll catch her." She laughed softly and took the little girl from his arms. Mary and John were smiling proudly at her, Marilyn rolling her eyes, clearly exasperated that it had taken her so long to do it.

"You look so good with her! You'll make an excellent mother one day." _Do not look horrified. And for God's sake do not look at Sherlock. There will be no more obvious tell that a) you are in a relationship with him and b) that you are in love with him than that. _She looked up at Marilyn, still smiling but with a 'help me' look clearly present in her blue eyes. Marilyn smiled mischievously and shrugged, pretending not to know what she wanted from her.

"I agree!" Marilyn said brightly. _I actually hate you. You are so dead. I hate you. _"I never got the chance to ask if there were any men in your life at the moment. Are there?" _I really hope a meteor hits you on your way home. Did I mention I hate you?_

Mary looked eager to know, and she saw a look cross over John's face, realising that the last time he was caught up with her and Sherlock events was a couple of days ago, and a lot had happened since then. He didn't realise Sherlock had acted on his maybe possibly feelings for her or that they were a little less maybe possibly and a little more kind of definitely feelings now. She had to figure out some answer. Telling them about Sherlock now seemed a little out of place, and she wanted to make him do it anyway. Just saying yes there was a guy subjected Sherlock to possible sharing and caring with John who wouldn't realise she was talking about him rather than some guy back home, and as with everything, it seemed a little presumptuous, especially as it was currently going to end in a few weeks unless he wanted her to stay. But saying no seemed cruel, and he might think she was only saying it because of what had happened on the way to the room, which for the record had stopped bothering her anyway. _Whatever I do is destined to be a train wreck._

"Yes there is someone." Serena frowned as she heard Sherlock answer for her. "Weren't you telling me just this morning how handsome and intelligent he was?" _I guess we're still not telling John then. Probably for the best. Let him settle in to domestic bliss before we throw in the grenade. _Sherlock looked at her and winked and she rolled her eyes but mouthed a very quick thank you to him, although she realised quickly that now they knew there was someone and didn't realise Sherlock was talking about himself she was going to be subjected to a long string of questions, several probably from Marilyn trying to catch her out and get her to admit it wasn't someone from home, but John's best, much older, friend.

She could see Marilyn scowling and she smiled brightly. _One nil to me little sister. Well, technically Sherlock helped, but I still win._

Quickly, trying to deflect their attention to something else, Serena gently handed the baby back to Mary so her and John could focus on that instead. She looked over to him and a brief look passed between her and Sherlock who smiled at her and took her hand discreetly. Having managed to evade the topic, she simply fished her camera out of her bag and took some pictures. With Sherlock and the new baby and her sister, Serena couldn't remember having felt this happy for a long time.


	21. Twenty One

TWENTY ONE

"Please stop complaining, I really can't take it much longer." Serena said, laughing softly.

"I can't help it; we've been here for five hours now and we were in the hospital for hours before this too. I am bored." Serena rolled her eyes, something she had been doing for about as many hours as they had spent together that day. He could tell she was getting as bored as he was; babies were quite sweet, surprisingly so, but this one had been asleep since they had gone back to Mary and John's house. Serena had managed to leave for a few minutes to collect some of Marilyn's stuff from Sherlock's flat as she was staying with John and Mary. He had wanted to go with them but there had been no legitimate reason for him to. He couldn't drive and probably wouldn't be much help packing, so he had been forced to stay.

"We'll only stay another hour or so." she promised him. He sighed heavily and settled back in to the chair he was sat in.

Mary, John, and Marilyn all came in to the room and Serena sat back on the sofa, away from him, smiling but giving him a warning look to pretend at least to be enjoying himself. He watched her and shook his head. She was a lot better at pretending to be happy than he was, currently beaming at the three who had just walked in, already conversing with them about something trivial probably. He had never quite been able to muster the social skills required to be able to do that.

"So Serena, you never did finish telling us about your new man!" Mary said cheerfully, and he watched in half-amusement as the colour drained from her cheeks and her eyes filled with horror, not that Mary noticed of course. She was still smiling, albeit a little more strained than before. "Marilyn just reminded me in the kitchen."

Serena shot her sister a 'You are dead to me now' look. Her sister of course knew about their relationship, and clearly she was just trying to annoy her sister. It amused him, mostly because Marilyn was directing it at Serena, not him, but he tried not to let it show. Serena would be even more pissed off if he did and he was trying very hard not to annoy her. Marilyn was doing enough of that on her own without him chiming in. He did however look at Serena, eyebrow quirked in amusement, wondering how she would answer, trying not to smirk when she shot him a similar look to the one she had given her sister, perhaps a little more forgiving as he hadn't been the one to bring it up in the first place. Sherlock wondered whether she should help her out again; he seemed to have helped earlier even if all it had done was postpone the inevitable; he could literally see her mind reeling when they had asked her the first time, wondering whether he would care if she said yes or no or just told John that they were sort of an item but not for long because she was still planning on going home soon. He was going to have to talk to her about that at some point. Now didn't seem like the right time. He wasn't sure if there would ever be a right time.

"Surely you don't want to hear about all that." Serena said, straining to make her voice casual even though she was clearly uncomfortable. John and Mary remained blissfully unaware of this and simply chided her for more details.

"He's… I mean… Not really…" _Sweetheart, you are a train wreck. Beautiful and angelic too of course, but a train wreck when it comes to lying._

"Come on, Serena!" Marilyn pushed, earning another glare from her sister who was now playing with her hair, winding strands round her fingers quickly, something he had noticed she only did when she was nervous or guilty. He supposed that she had reason to be both. "we want to know all about him."

"Oh but where to start?" Serena said with a false smile, waving it off. This time though, the topic was not going to be so easily diverted.

"Start with his name." Marilyn suggested. Serena gave Sherlock a helpless look. _Clearly she wants me to tell John, but I'm really not in the mood. There's going to be shouting. I'm far too exhausted._

"I'd just rather not tell you all about him until we're really serious. So you don't all get your hopes up." A look of understanding passed between John and Mary who smiled and nodded at her, but Marilyn scowled as it looked for a moment like Serena might have won. Then a devious look passed over her pixie-like features and she grinned brightly, shaking her head at her sister, trying to look as though she wasn't hatching this all as a plan. Sherlock could see no reason for her to do so other than that they had annoyed her earlier by kissing in front of her and she was doing this as some kind of payback. Either that or she was simply trying to annoy her older sister. Possibly it was a little of both, as it might have been if it were him and Mycroft as opposed to the two of them.

"But Sherlock said you told him all about this guy." He didn't even look at Serena, he could quite easily picture the look of annoyance she would be wearing. _Well, it helped at the time. I'm going to have to say something here aren't I? Fuck it. May as well just tell them. She can always laugh it off if she really doesn't want them to know. _

"It's me. She's seeing me." Sherlock said, watching as a look of relief washed over the blonde. As she had before, she mouthed a very quick thank you to him. Mary laughed and shook her head.

"I'm being serious, I really want to know."

"Mary, it really is Sherlock. We're just sort of seeing how it goes until I go home." Serena sounded quiet, and for a moment he wondered if saying it like this might not have been what she wanted him to do. _But she needed me to do something, and I did. Perhaps I could have been a little less blunt about it, but really she should be pleased I wasn't just laughing along with her sister. _A quick glance up told him that she wasn't annoyed anyway. Serena's eyes sparkled and she was smiling brightly and genuinely for the first time in a while, although her cheeks were flushed in embarrassment; he'd certainly never had her pegged as someone who like to talk about her romantic endeavours with anyone, not that to his knowledge she'd had many that weren't just sexual. She probably liked talking about them even less.

"Well, that's certainly not who I expected, but it's great. I mean, so long as you're both happy, right John?" Mary said cheerfully. She appeared at least to be very genuine about this. She actually was happy for them. John looked a little dazed, probably because he had never expected Sherlock to act on the feelings he knew he had for Serena, but he also didn't look angry. Sherlock wondered if that was because he didn't have the energy to be, what, with the new baby.

"Yeah, so long as you're both happy." John said with a small smile and a quick warning look to Sherlock. _I'm pretty sure that's a silent 'I'll castrate you if you get her pregnant' implied right there._

"We are." It was said together by them both and Mary smiled at them. Sherlock read the look as her already mentally planning their wedding and naming their children for them. He wondered if in fact this had been as good an idea as he had hoped, although Marilyn scowling fiercely because she was no longer able to hold it over her sister's head really did make it worth it.

"Lovely as the day has been. Serena and I really should be getting home. We know you'll all need your sleep, as do we."

"In separate beds of course." John added. His tone made it very clear he wasn't joking, although Sherlock watched Mary try and suppress a laugh. It probably didn't bother her as much because she wasn't related to Serena.

"Of course." Serena said nodding at her uncle, and Sherlock was horrified at how genuine she sounded. John nodded at turned to leave the room, as did Mary so they could see them to the door. As soon as they were gone Serena turned to him and shook her head quickly before she marched out of the room. He loved her impatient little march which she only used when either making an entrance or making a dramatic exit. She'd walked like that in to his apartment that first evening. It hadn't been long ago, but to him it felt like a lot had changed. She was no longer just the woman he fantasised about, but a beautiful reality. He never imagined having any sort of emotional connection with her.

It was late by the time they arrived home and they were both tired, although they did manage to make good use of the shower together before they went to bed simply to curl up next to each other. He never slept particularly well, and though she was a comforting presence when he couldn't, having Serena there wasn't making much difference. He fell asleep several hours after her, although both woke at the same time hearing a knock at the door.

"Who is that?" Sherlock asked her tiredly. She smiled, already wide awake, getting up to put on one of his shirts. He watched her frowning. He didn't understand people who could just wake up and get going. He needed to lie there for at least half an hour before he was any good to anyone. He sat up quickly to look at her.

"Probably Mrs Hudson. She usually brings you tea, right?"

"Yes, but she has a key."

"Well maybe she's just being polite because I'm here." He nodded. He wasn't sure how much sense it made really, but in his tired state it seemed logical at least. He didn't even have time to raise his eyebrows at the fact all she was wearing was a shirt before she was walking happily out of the room. He fell back to the bed and closed his eyes, hoping he could go back to sleep. It was a venture quickly interrupted by Serena rushing in, putting on a pair of jeans and opening the curtains quickly. He groaned and sat up again, glaring at her.

"Dressed, now. If you're not out there in a minute and a half or preferably less I'm never speaking to you again." She spoke quickly and walked out.

He got up and put on the first clothes he could find before he went out. Serena was in the kitchen making tea and she jerked her head towards the living room He pulled one hand back through his hair, still exhausted and walked through. The sight of both his parents sat there, chatting and smiling cheerfully did nothing to help how tired he was. It simply made him want to crawl back to bed. Before he greeted them his eyes flitted back to the kitchen where Serena was stood against the counter glaring at him. _She must think I knew they were coming. Oh God, they saw her in just a shirt. She's going to kill me._

"Oh Sherlock, we're so sorry to intrude, Myc said we should come and see you because he had to work this morning, and it's nearly midday so we assumed you'd be up. We didn't realise you had company." His mother said before he even had a chance to say hello. Serena came over with two mugs and gave one to each of his parents, then went back to retrieve two more, one for him and one for herself.

"Oh no, no trouble at all." _I am going to kill Mycroft. Although by the looks of it Serena might beat me to it. Hilarious as that will be I will be morally obligated to stop it. Or at least to pretend to try._

"Myc said we should surprise you. He wanted us to meet his fiancé." His father said. Serena, as usual when there was company and it would involve her bringing a chair over, settled down on the floor, putting as much space between herself and Sherlock as possible. Her cheeks were still flushed with embarrassment. _Well, maybe it'll teach her to wear more clothes next time she answers the door._

"They're getting married?" Serena said, looking a little surprised that she had spoken. His mother nodded happily.

"We're so glad he's found someone. Myc always was a little bit… Wary of other children, but he seems very happy now. Funny, we didn't think either of our boys were going to find anyone and now they both have." Serena's eyes widened, and she looked at him, expecting him to correct them. Unfortunately, he was still tired, too tired to try and explain Serena. Especially to his parents. "When did you get engaged?" Serena practically choked on the sip of tea she had taken, looking at him, begging silently for him to correct this. _Oh fuck. They think she's living with me, and of course that can only mean we're getting married. I'm not sure who she wants to kill more at the moment, me or Mycroft. Or Marilyn actually. I'm not sure if she's been forgiven for last night or not._

"Last night." Sherlock heard himself say. Serena looked at him coldly, but he simply smiled and took her hand.

"The same as Myc!" His mother gushed happily, his father nodding in approval.

"You must both come out to dinner with us tonight! We were just going to invite Sherlock to celebrate but I suppose it will have to be for both our boys now, and their partners. You can come, can't you?" It was directed at Serena who was trying her best to look casual and happy. She was a terrible liar when she was uncomfortable.

"Of course, I can't wait." she said brightly, if a little strained.

"Excellent! Well, we won't intrude any longer, but we'll come by with Myc and Greg to pick you up at around half past six this evening. Have a lovely day you two!" Half-finished tea left on the table, they both got up and saw themselves out, clearly eager to leave behind the awkwardness they had caused by arriving in the first place. For once though, Sherlock was rather unhappy about his parents leaving, if only because it subjected him to being screamed at by Serena, who tactfully waited until she had heard them walk down the stairs and out of the front door before she turned to him with eyes like thunder, poised and ready to start screaming at him.

"Why the hell would you tell your parents we're engaged, Sherlock?" she yelled at him.

"Because you insisted on answering the door barely clothed, and they would have been a lot more judgemental if I had said girlfriend, and even more judgemental if I said 'we're planning on seeing each other for a few weeks before she goes home, it's all very casual'. She still looked annoyed but perhaps a little less so. He mentally congratulated himself for avoiding the worst of it and for actually managing to turn it around and somehow make it her fault. When she thought it through he was sure she wouldn't appreciate it, but for now he was in the clear about the matter. He hoped.

"Well, I'd better call Greg and get him and your brother filled in on the lie so we don't get found out. I am still not happy about this."

"I'll make it up to you." She grinned, already punching in Greg's number to her mobile phone which she always kept handy. She didn't seem to be able to live without that phone or her camera being within ten feet of her, although she used her camera more than her phone, which was odd because for most people it would have been the other way around. Of course it was just another in a long list of things which set Serena wonderfully apart from the rest of the world in his eyes.

"You know I'll hold you to that." He kissed her cheek as he got up to take the cups to the kitchen, overhearing only her end of the conversation with Greg, who she told off for laughing at her predicament. Mycroft was going to enjoy this even more than his apparent fiancé was, he realised.

"Well," she said when she had put the phone down. "I better find something to wear."


End file.
